Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Cassius]

Quite a few pundits had their now familiar spiels prepared in the event of a right wing win.

Nice to see them inconvenienced for once

Don’t really see how this can be spun as a setback for the right (even if elements of the mainstream media are trying very hard) - the Democrats lost one of the two regions that voted, whilst in the other (one in the heart of the cintura rossa that has been run by the left and centre-left for all but three of the last fifty years) they won by a modest margin after leading in almost every poll throughout the campaign, whilst the right’s vote went up considerably.

Once again, I feel, certain elements within the media have chosen to adopt a fairly unrealistic yardstick to measure the success of the hard right and then, once they fail to meet that yardstick, dressed it up as some great victory for the ‘centre’. We seem to have this in every European election now, where the result is either presented as ‘the centre has held’ or a ‘wake up call for the parties of the centre’, regardless of the particular context of the election. LN+FdI winning 40% of the vote in a red belt region augurs very well for their chances in any future election, whilst the Democrats winning despite scoring an anaemic vote share, by their standards, does not. I suppose we just have to wait until the right wins another regional election and then we’ll be back to ‘ITALY ON THE BRINK’, ‘BOND MARKETS ROCKED’, ‘TURNING AND TURNING IN A WIDENING GYRE’ again.

[Cassius]

I mean, the polls were close but as far as i’m aware the centre-left was almost always in the lead, so a centre-left victory was hardly an unlikely scenario. Nonetheless, I read about this result on Bloomberg earlier today and they actually (in a non-opinion piece) described it as a ‘humiliation’ for Salvini, which just seems frankly bizarre in the context of the polls and the region’s history as a left wing stronghold.

It was a humiliation for M5S though, so I don’t particularly see how it bodes well for the future of the current Conte government (as parts of the media are now trumpeting). I suppose, on the one hand, if they leave government they risk getting wiped out in an early election, but on the other if they continue to stay in there they risk further erosion of their support and possibly being reduced to an adjunct of the centre-left coalition, which probably won’t be particularly helpful to them either.

[Cassius]

As there are six parties in this new government can we christen it as the Sexapartito in honour of the Pentapartito?

[Cassius]

As there are six parties in this new government can we christen it as the Sexapartito in honour of the Pentapartito?

As there is Berlusconi's party in this new government we can christen it as the Sex-a-partito.



Aaaaanyway, the correct term using Italian prefixes would be Esapartito.

Damn morphology.

[Cassius]

Can someone more knowledgeable than I explain why AVS didn’t support the Draghi government yet are happy to work with PD? Was it not wanting to support a government containing the right?

Basically? I mean, really, it's not like the Draghi government ever had anything to offer to that side of the political spectrum. It's okay for PD because PD is an ~Institutionalist~ party first and a vaguely center-left-ish party (if you squint) second, but obviously that's not the case with AVS.

l mean let's be fair PD is very clearly centre-left-ish now (even if ish) and Mario Adinolfi, Il Giornale, Renzi fanboys and whoever else is screaming about THE TRANSFORMATION BACK INTO PDS can cope harder... but certainly ~Institutionalism~ is one key thing keeping together that huge jumble, parts of which have rather different priorities from others.

Isn't Letta ex-DC (although I suppose he might have been on the left-wing)?

Edit: Hilarious but fitting that a tiny micro-party styling itself as the successor to the PSI is running as a satellite of Berlusconi's party.

[Cassius]

Why is Meloni going up in the polls? Her average has risen to nearly 30% (almost 1/6 an increase) after two months. I don't think she's done anything positive of note yet, although someone more well-versed on Italian politics can correct me if I'm wrong.

Looks like she’s consolidating more of the right-wing vote behind her now that she’s clearly top dog on the right. Same thing happened for Salvini in the aftermath of 2018, where the Lega bounced very quickly from the 17% it received in the actual election into the low to mid 20s.

[Cassius]

I had missed this but the Democratic Party has moved its primary by one week, so the vote will be on the 26th of February.

The four candidates...

Stefano Bonaccini, president of Emilia-Romagna. Notable things about him: on the more moderate liberal wing of the party, won re-election by a bigger margin than expected in 2020, has been supportive of increased regional autonomy, wants the M5S to eat sh**t.
Elly Schlein, vicepresident of Emilia-Romagna (yes really) until her election to Parliament last September. Notable things about her: very progressive, bisexual, Jewish, also a Swiss and a US citizen, left the PD in 2015 because she considered Renzi too right-wing before rejoining recently.
Paola De Micheli, Deputy. Notable things about her: blank stare well she was the vice-secretary under Zingaretti and the Minister of Transport during Conte II I guess. And she is also from Emilia-Romagna!
Gianni Cuperlo, Deputy. Notable things about him: aside from being the only non-Emilian in the race, being a complete blast from the past (he ran for this post in 2014 and not quite as a fresh new face). I am half convinced his candidacy is a deliberate meme.

Gianni Cuperlo looks like what you would get if you bred a stereotypical boring Italian centre-left politician in a lab.

[Cassius]

BASED! This is the first time in a while that a Jew has been in charge of a major European party (that wasn't a personal vehicle, looking at you, Zemmour)

Anyway, why did Schlein lose Emilia-Romagna? She's from there and was Vice President of the region (I assume that's the Italian equivalent of Lieutenant Governor, feel free to correct me)

Bonaccini is the President of Emilia-Romagna.

[Cassius]

Any reason for Sicily being titanium FI in 1994? No MSI tradition (although I can see some deep shades in Lazio where the MSI was pretty strong iirc)?