Italy 2013 official results thread

[SPQR]

I just want to emigrate...


Anyway,according to my calculations on Excel,we should hold the Camera by 40-50,000 votes.

[SPQR]

What are the odds of another election before the end of the year? Seems likely with the state in the Senate.

Perfect way to give an absolute majority to Grillo in the senate.

[SPQR]

What are the odds of another election before the end of the year? Seems likely with the state in the Senate.

Perfect way to give an absolute majority to Grillo in the senate.

Considering that it is he, who refuses to join in any coalition, this would be triply insane. Should the rest of Europe start preparing for Italian default?

Look at the number of seats for Berlusconi + Grillo...it should be enough to have a pretty easy answer.

[SPQR]

Election of the new President,and then new elections,at least in the Senate,since in the Camera there is an absolute majority for PD.


Anyhow,I appreciate how you guys try and make rational polytical analyses,but it's pretty useless.
Italians love to vote for whoever tells them in a really nice way (either shouting the hardest like Grillo,or being a clown like Berlusconi) easy promises,such as "I'll give you back the money you spent on the property tax last year,and it will be cash!".

Worthless people who don't give a damn about who has the most concrete proposals,and don't have any ideals.

[SPQR]

Bersani will declare that this is a short-term government;the president of the Camera will be a M5S member,whereas they will not oppose any decent nominee for the President of the Republic.
The main laws will be those against corruption at all levels,and some other ethics-based laws on which PD and M5S agree. If they say no,they'll lose any credibility.

If the financial markets don't collapse,PD will be able to survive until October without having to  introduce new taxes,and thus will not take any fire from PdL(which will become even more populist in these months,since it will not have to take part in any legislative activity).

One of the main reforms will be the electoral reform,which will be done with M5S and Monti.
Then,in the fall,new elections,with Renzi as the candidate and the whole of the old guard gone. Electoral campaign based on publicizing in a better way (the "Renzi way",more media-friendly) proposals such as lowering taxes on firms.


This is what I think and hope will happen in the next few months.

[SPQR]

Bersani will declare that this is a short-term government;the president of the Camera will be a M5S member,whereas they will not oppose any decent nominee for the President of the Republic.
The main laws will be those against corruption at all levels,and some other ethics-based laws on which PD and M5S agree. If they say no,they'll lose any credibility.

If the financial markets don't collapse,PD will be able to survive until October without having to  introduce new taxes,and thus will not take any fire from PdL(which will become even more populist in these months,since it will not have to take part in any legislative activity).

One of the main reforms will be the electoral reform,which will be done with M5S and Monti.
Then,in the fall,new elections,with Renzi as the candidate and the whole of the old guard gone. Electoral campaign based on publicizing in a better way (the "Renzi way",more media-friendly) proposals such as lowering taxes on firms.


This is what I think and hope will happen in the next few months.

This sounds like a reasonable and feasible strategy to get out of the deadlock.

Unfortunately, however, there have been reports today that the "Troika", on their current regular monitoring mission to Greece, have found little progress and much "business as usual". My guess is that this will first of all mean there is now going to be hard action on Greece, probably even postponing or cancelling the next payment, in order to send a signal to markets and Italy alike.
However, Italy will most likely not remain untouched.

Germany will switch into "election mode" by mid-/ late June, and the Euro-sceptics here are primarily found within Merkel's base, not so much among the red-green voters. This means substantial pressure on Italy to come up with some kind of reform (stricter anti-corruption legislation is anything but a bad idea here) until June. Afterwards, you will be pretty much left on your own to convince financial markets, with not much help to be expected from Germany and the European Central Bank, respectively.

Probably, its also a good idea to hold the next elections already in September, when world attention is focusing on the German election. This would give Italy a little more time to sort out the way ahead, while Germany (and Austria) are doing the same.

Yes,elections in Germany might hold a crucial role in the scenario I described.
What I hope is that declaring from the beginning that this is a short-term government,with the only aim to introduce laws on corruption and such,and to make no changes on reforms such as the one on pensions,will calm down financial markets.
A worsening of the situation in Greece and/or idiotic statements from German CDU politicians might well screw PD.
Yesterday and today they obviously lost their head...like any honest italian,tbf.

[SPQR]

The PdL candidate had been president of the Region for many years,and these elections were called because of riggings on his part in the last elections 2 years ago (which he had won by about 1,000 votes against Frattura).


Anyway it's just lovely to see that the "I don't like the man,but you got to respect him" narrative comes out once again from certain people.
Anyone who does not understand that he is the portrait of dishonesty and is exactly what politics should not be about,is exactly the kind of person who would vote for him.
The kind of person who only thinks about the 150-200 euros he would get back in case Berlusconi won and refunded the IMU tax. The kind of person that does not care about whether that would cause Italy's default.

Oh but please,go on,just don't try and seem impartial next time there's an italian election.

[SPQR]

Maybe it's already been discussed - it's a long tread - but why have the opinion polls been so bad (again)? The last polls, including the illegal "horse polls", predicted IBC winning by ca. 5%. Exit polls predicted the same. After all, they end up with a 0.3% lead.

What's going on here?

Shy Silvo Effect

Most of his critics will be shouting about a comfortable win, "Silvio is totally finished. No doubt about it," etc. next time around, too. Some people never learn their lesson.

Lol,he got exactly what the polls (and even I,in my prediction) predicted.

The only error in polls was overestimating PD by 5 points,and underestimating Grillo by more than 5 points (because also Ingroia was overestimated by a couple of points).

[SPQR]

Oh, and the actual quote

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How can you disagree with that?

[SPQR]

Pretty intense negotiations till the new parliament convenes on March 10. Have they settled on speaker nominees for either Camera or Senate yet? IIRC Bersani offered M5S the Camera speakership since they're the largest single party, but hopefully he's not serious. Especially in a situation like this you don't want an amateur in that slot.

The Speaker of the Camera will really not count much.
The Camera has a big PD-SEL majority,so any controversial issue will be in the Senate.

[SPQR]

From today's headlines, seems like while there's editorial and intraparty support for the Renzi idea, still a fairly remote possibility. Could be totally wrong of course.

Only Corriere della Sera wrote about it,and it was utter bullsh**t...also because Renzi would have no interest whatsoever in being the PM right now,in this mess.



Turnout was down 5 points,but you can't say that 75% is a low turnout...

[SPQR]

Renzi is already designed as PD's candidate in the next elections, he has no interest whatsoever in being PM in this mess.

Anyway,most people don't care whether he is centrist or not...they would just vote for him because he is "new".

[SPQR]

Does a government need to win an absolute majority in both chambers in the initial confidence vote? e.g. can the government win the confidence of the Senate assuming only the left votes in favour and M5S abstains (rather than votes against) -- are abstentions counted as votes against or not taken into account?

In the Senate,abstentions are counted as votes against.
And even if M5S does not participate at all in the confidence vote,then also PDL could not participate and thus not allow a vote at all,since there wouldn't be enough senators.

[SPQR]

Renzi is already designed as PD's candidate in the next elections, he has no interest whatsoever in being PM in this mess.

Anyway,most people don't care whether he is centrist or not...they would just vote for him because he is "new".

There won't be primaries or are you using "designated" very loosely (maybe he's just the clear frontrunner now)?

If elections are in fall 2013,there might as well be no primaries.

[SPQR]

PD's proposal is the French system more or less.

[SPQR]

Back to results. Turnout was down five points... on a previous record low.

Yeah, that's quite depressing, but still impressive when you think about it. Without Grillo, it would probably have been much worse.

Yeah, I'm more wondering how high it would have had to be for Grillo to win.

Hopefully we'll never know.

That clown scares me every day more. He pretends that his movement is the most democratic amongst all parties,but then all decisions are taken by him and fellow millionaire Casaleggio,without ever consulting the activists.

[SPQR]

Amongst their 20 proposals,there are:
minimum income for every Italian citizen (how to finance it? nobody knows)
A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.
Abolition of Equitalia (who's going to collect taxes? Equitalia 2? Or people will just pay spontaneously?)

and a lot more of either populist bs or vague proposals.

Mother of God...

[SPQR]

Amongst their 20 proposals,there are:
minimum income for every Italian citizen (how to finance it? nobody knows)
A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.
Abolition of Equitalia (who's going to collect taxes? Equitalia 2? Or people will just pay spontaneously?)

and a lot more of either populist bs or vague proposals.

Mother of God...

Out of these 20 proposals, which three could be used to keep them busy with until summer (2 to vote seriously on and try out whether a working relation may be established, and number 3 to prove to the public that it is hopeless to continue that way and new elections are the only feasible solution)?

Corruption
Conflict of interest
Electoral law
Abolishing the public funding to political parties (even though I think it would be stupid)

[SPQR]

Exterior devaluation has been applied (relatively) successfully in Italy in the Nineties to get out of the mess created by Craxi&Co.
The recipe that is applied now is interior devaluation and "structural reforms". The success is yet to be seen...

IMO,the answer cannot be an European Union which stays the way it is now. There needs to be more cohesion,accompanied by less focus on strict parameters which reality has proven wrong again and again,and focus more on productive investments.
It's time to accept that price control is not sufficient.

Anyhow,I don't trust my fellow citizens in making choices such as "in/out of the Euro". If they believe populism a la Berlusconi or Grillo,it won't take much to believe populism on "let's go back to the Lira and devaluate year after year,yeah!".

[SPQR]

A REFERENDUM ON EURO...probably they believe that watching a couple of videos on youtube will make every Italian citizen ready to vote on such a vital issue.

Not that crazy...

Of course crazy. Italy getting out of the Euro would mean full domestic control on the money printing press, which is turned on immediately for all sorts of nice gifts. Inflation, de-valuation every 1-2 years, everybody is happy except for those living on pensions (which are getting eaten up by inflation).

That's exactly the kind of environment you hope for if you intend to bring about fundamental reform, and put an end to corruption and patronage, isn't it?

Well, the Euro's done such great things for Italy over the past few years, hasn't it?

Oh,so if we just get out from it,things will be suddenly better! How did we not realize...

[SPQR]

IdV = Rivoluzione Civile...I am not sure how they could get any seats.