When Italy’s Democratic Party lost the election in September, I told Newsweek they had made a mistake running on abortion, LGBT and immigration rights:
That helped the right more than it helped the left. Social justice resonates with university-educated Italians in big cities like Bologna and Florence. It doesn’t convince the garbage collector in Naples or the unemployed single mother in Palermo that the left has their interests at heart.
So of course they doubled down on it. (more…)
The votes have been counted in 61,400 polling stations and they confirm what the exit poll told us on Sunday night: Italy has lurched to the right.
But not by much.
The four right-parties have 44 percent of the votes. That’s up from 37 percent in 2018, but closer to their historical average.
The right has become more right-wing. The Brothers of Italy, whose support went up from 4 to 26 percent, didn’t win many new voters; they cannibalized Matteo Salvini’s (formerly Northern) League, which has been reduced to a party of Po Valley homeowners and businessmen who despise the Italy south of the Arno River. Giorgia Meloni would lead Italy’s first right-wing government since Silvio Berlusconi stepped down in 2011, and the most right-wing government since the end of World War II.
The south, including Sardinia and Sicily, has about a third of the Italian population but not even one-fifth of its industrial base. It stuck with the Five Star Movement, the party of the left-behind Italy.
Ideologically and geographically, the social democrats are fighting a war on two fronts from their strongholds in Emilia-Romagna (the region around Bologna) and Tuscany (Florence). They did reasonably well in neighboring Liguria, Marche and Umbria, but there was a time when the left could count on working-class support from the south of the peninsula.
The defection of former party leader Matteo Renzi, and his union with the once-marginal liberals, which got 8 percent, also weakened the Democrats from within. (more…)
Italy’s Democrats are split on whether to negotiate with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.
At a party meeting on Tuesday, former ministers Dario Franceschini and Andrea Orlando argued for coalition talks.
The alternative, a Five Star government with the xenophobic (Northern) League, would make Italy look “like Hungary,” Franceschini said.
However, centrists loyal to the outgoing leader, Matteo Renzi, reject a deal.
Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio has said it is time to “bury the hatchet”. His talks with the League have not been going well. But the Five Stars still call for overturning Renzi’s signature labor reforms, which made it easier for firms to fire and hire workers. (more…)
Republicans in the House have wrapped up their Russia investigation and declared there was no collusion with the Donald Trump campaign.
Just like that.
I don’t suppose anyone was expecting House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes to release an unbiased report. He has been doing Trump’s bidding from the start. But to simply declare the investigation over, without Democratic consent, is particularly brazen.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have put party before country. When evidence of Russian meddling in the election emerged in late 2016, Senate leader Mitch McConnell warned President Barack Obama that he would consider it an act of partisan politics if his administration publicized the information.
When intelligence agencies finally did tell the public Russia was tampering with the election, on the same day (such a coincidence!) WikiLeaks published stolen emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. (more…)
There are two realistic outcomes to Italy’s election on Sunday: a right-wing government that includes the xenophobic Brothers of Italy and Northern League or a German-style grand coalition between Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the Democrats.
The second would be better for Italy and for Europe. To make that outcome more likely, Italians should vote for the center-left. (more…)
When Matteo Renzi won back control of Italy’s Democratic Party a year ago, I argued he had two challenges:
He has failed on both counts. (more…)
Both left-wing opponents and supporters of the former Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, are strengthening their ties ahead of parliamentary elections.
Italian parties are drawing battle lines ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections:
Italy’s smaller left-wing party has ruled out a pact with Matteo Renzi’s Democrats, making a populist or right-wing victory more likely in the upcoming election.
Pier Luigi Bersani, a former Democratic Party leader who now belongs to the dissident Democrats and Progressives, has rejected Renzi’s overtures as “theatrics”. (more…)
Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of Italy’s dissident leftist party, has opened the door to a pact with the ruling Democrats, saying, “If they want to talk to us, they must know that they should come with proposals.”
Bersani’s nemesis, Matteo Renzi, who toppled the older man in 2013, called for left-wing unity on Monday.
“There is more harmony with people with whom we have been divided by arguments and controversies than with our traditional rivals,” he argued. (more…)
Italy’s ruling center-left Democratic Party was defeated in regional elections on Sicily this weekend, going down from 30 to 18 percent support.
The party suffered from the same three problems locally as it does nationally:
Voting reforms enacted by the Italian parliament this week could do little to make the country more governable, an analysis of Ipsos polling data by Corriere della Sera reveals. The three main political blocs would remain roughly equal in size.
The new law allocates a third of the seats in the lower chamber on a first-past-the-post basis and removes the premium for the largest party.
The expectation was that these changes would hurt the populist Five Star Movement and help the mainstream left and right.
But it turns out the effect could be negligible. (more…)
Italy’s Democratic Party leader, Matteo Renzi, has called for a German-style voting system in his country that could pave the way for a left-right coalition government.
Italy must have voting reform before elections can be held this year or next. (more…)
