Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[jaichind]

Praying for a M5S-PD government.

You know that if that were to take place it would not last long and if FI-LN alliance (which by then might become the LN-FI alliance) holds together they will sweep the early elections.

[jaichind]

Some Lazio numbers finally coming in.  PD doing fairly well given the circumstances.  M5S doing poorly and losing ground relative to 2013.

[jaichind]

Things seem pretty bad for PD in FPTP seats.  In Tuscany where it is the strongest, out of the 7 Senate seats, it is only ahead in 2 of them.  And one of seats that it is ahead is Renzi's seat.

In Emilia-Romagna where PD is also very strong it seems to be Center-Right 6 PD 2 in terms of Senate FPTP leads.

[jaichind]

RAI Projection (Lower House)

M5S gained ground since last projection

Coalition      From   To
Center-Right      247   257
Center-Left      110   120

Party   
Five Star Movement      230   240
League      115   123
Democratic Party      104   110
Forza Italia      99   105
Brothers of Italy      24   32
Free and Equal      11   19
South Tyrolean People’s Party      3   5
Us With Italy - UDC      2   4
Popular Civic Lorenzin      1   3
+Europe Bonino      0   2
Together Italy Europe      0   2
Others      0   2

[jaichind]

It seems that PD will become the 4th largest party in the Senate behind M5S, LN, and FI.

[jaichind]

What is annoying about http://elezioni.interno.gov.it/senato/scrutini/20180304/scrutiniSI is that it gives you the name of the alliance candidate but not the party ID of said candidate.

[jaichind]

I think Renzi will have to be out as PD leader after this sort of result.

[jaichind]

LeU never got off the ground, but it has had an impact on the election: it's going to cost the PD a bunch of district seats...

I saw that.  I am confused on why this took place.  Even if LeU ran candidates in the FPTP seats surely their PR supporters should tactically vote for the Center-Left block since there is no way the LeU candidate could win.  It does not seem to have taken place.  Is there some sort of rule I am not aware of that forces the PR vote to be linked to the FPTP vote ?

[jaichind]

It seems based on current projections M5S could also form a majority via an alliance with FI as well.  It seems M5S-LN, M5S-PD, and M5S-FI all produces a majority.

[jaichind]

Slightly confused - +Europa are currently at c.2.8%, so they won't cross the threshold and will only get their uninominal seats, unless they pick up later. But does that proportional vote just go to waste or is it given to the centre-left coalition?

It goes to the rest of the coalition (that is to say, to PD).

Oh, so it's not quite as bad as it looks for PD, then.

But I guess that same logic would apply for the UDC PR votes which are also below the threshold.

[jaichind]

LeU never got off the ground, but it has had an impact on the election: it's going to cost the PD a bunch of district seats...

I saw that.  I am confused on why this took place.  Even if LeU ran candidates in the FPTP seats surely their PR supporters should tactically vote for the Center-Left block since there is no way the LeU candidate could win.  It does not seem to have taken place.  Is there some sort of rule I am not aware of that forces the PR vote to be linked to the FPTP vote ?

The answer is the electoral system: you cannot vote for a different party for the district and list seats. Another spectacular own goal for Renzi there.

Ok, well that's it.  I was thinking to myself earlier tonight, PD might do better in the FPTP seat then the PR vote share might imply since surely they can get LeU tactical voting.  I guess that is out too.

[jaichind]

LeU never got off the ground, but it has had an impact on the election: it's going to cost the PD a bunch of district seats...

Like the Right is currently winning the 2nd Tuscany Seat by 7K votes at about 65% tabulated...

Slightly confused - +Europa are currently at c.2.8%, so they won't cross the threshold and will only get their uninominal seats, unless they pick up later. But does that proportional vote just go to waste or is it given to the centre-left coalition?

If a party gets below 1%, their votes are dead. If above 1% but between 3%, the votes go to other parties in the alliance above 3%. Above 3%, the party gets in. At least, thats how it was explained to me.

Wait.  3 of the Center-Left alliance parties are below 1% in terms of PR votes.  So they will all just be gone as far as their seat getting potential ?

[jaichind]

Rome-based Luiss University's CISE headed by prominent political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte just posted an analysis stressing that Five Star got its best results in the areas with more unemployment while the League got more votes in constituencies with more immigrants.

https://cise.luiss.it/cise/2018/03/05/disoccupazione-e-immigrazione-dietro-i-vincitori-del-4-marzo/

[jaichind]

What I am reading from various news wires:

1) Five Star Movement candidate Luigi Di Maio will speak to the media later today and will likely call on President Sergio Mattarella to give Five Star the first chance to form a government, being that they were the most-voted party with about 33 percent of the popular vote.

2) The League's strong showing, winning about 17 percent of the vote and surpassing Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in the Center-Right coalition, will make it less likely the League would seek a post-election, anti-establishment alliance with Five Star, even if they had enough seats for a majority.

3) Berlusconi's Center-Right coalition will also demand the right to form a government as their combined votes of more than 35 percent will top Five Star. The coalition will also win the most seats in both chambers, but remain well short of a majority.

[jaichind]

Renzi resigns as head of PD.

[jaichind]

Lega still bigger than FI in both Lazio 1 and Lazio 2.

Yes, but in the Senate race for Lazio FI is slightly larger.

[jaichind]

Campania and Sicilia finished. 20 additional seats, all M5S.

Centre-right 26
Lega 9
Forza Italia 10
FdI 5
NcI-UDC 2

M5S 35

Centre-left 5
PD 2
SVP 2
UV (Valle d'Aosta) 1

The big ones left are

TOSCANA and EMILIA-ROMAGNA: most likely evenly split between Center-Right and Center-Left
LAZIO: Mostly Center-Right
LOMBARDIA:  Most likely near Center-Right (really Lega) sweep

[jaichind]

I noticed in TRENTINO-ALTO ADIGE in some seats (both Lower House and Senate) SVP-PATT ran separately from the Center-Left alliance.  So it seems that the election law does allow for alliances on a district by district basis.  Is this because Trentino-South Tyrol is an autonomous region so they get an exemption from the election law or does the new election law allows for imperfect alliances ?

[jaichind]

So it seems that it is possible to vote for a FPTP candidate without voting for a party.  How does it work.  Does the voter mark off the name of the candidate and not the party?

[jaichind]

M5S swept the three Sardinia seats. Now we are only waiting for Lazio, and we should have the full results.

Centre-right 52
Lega 20
Forza Italia 20
FdI 10
NcI-UDC 2

M5S 41

Centre-left 13
PD 8
SVP 2
UV (Valle d'Aosta) 1
Italia Europa Insieme 1
Civica Popolare 1

How did you figure out the party identity of the FPTP winners?  None of the sites I looked at has that info.

[jaichind]

lazio 2 M5S 1 +Europa, 6 cdx, 1 toss up

I thought there are 2 tossups (3rd (center-right ahead) and 4th (M5S ahead))

[jaichind]

So M5S is the party of the youth.  Center-Right bloc the bloc of the Middle aged, and Center-Left bloc the bloc of the Elderly. 

[jaichind]

How did you figure out the party identity of the FPTP winners?  None of the sites I looked at has that info.

Googling and Facebooking the winning candidates to find the information. For some, it was a bit hard, so it's possible that there is a mistake or two. It takes some time, which is why I haven't done it for the Chamber

You got to be kidding me.  Well, I guess in Italy there is less of a focus on the party ID of the MP. In which case I would expect laws around defecting and poaching to be fairly weak or non-existent.  In which case if no formal deal be worked out to form a majority then the party that has been tasked to try to form a majority can use various poaching techniques to get to a majority.

[jaichind]

I should have sticked with my original prediction which had the Lega 4 points ahead of Berlusconi.



It was only when I looked up historical election results on Wikipedia that I decided to put Berlusconi ahead ...

Yes, but your bloc-by-bloc prediction were pretty accurate.  Congrats.  The League surge is very surprising.  What is a shock is that they can get to mid to high single digits of the PR vote in the South.  If they can pull that off they deserve to that 17+ vote share.

[jaichind]

Chances of Italeave happening with the current election results?

Fairly low.  M5S and Lega has both toned down their anti-EU talk recently.   EUR has really not moved that much as a result of the election result is a sign that there is no expectations if Italy leaving the EU.