Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[jaichind]

Draghi resignation accepted

[jaichind]

The right wing parties got what they wanted: an early election but with 5 Star taking the blame for the fall of the current government

[jaichind]

The ECB is in a very difficult situation.  Raise rates to stop price surge means the Italian bond market might be in real big trouble since the Italian bond spreads already surged on political turmoil.  ECB has a "tool" to contain the Italian bond spreads from rising too much but it is just de facto QE which defeats the point of rate increases.

[jaichind]

Bloomberg reports that Italy Set to Hold Early Elections on September 25

[jaichind]

So unless something changes, the reconstituted Conservative alliance is likely going to end up make Meloni PM...right? Yuck.

I assume the Right-wing alliance of Fdl Lega and FI will have a deal where the leader of the largest of the 3 becomes PM.  If so I wonder if both Fdl and Lega might de facto undermine each other during the campaign and the voting in a race to be the bigger party.

[jaichind]

Any news on what alliances will look like outside the Right win alliance? Will  IpF run with anyone?  What about the various PD splinters?

[jaichind]

Maybe Salvini and Meloni can work out a deal where they rotate the PM role with each getting 2.5 years of a 5 years term.

[jaichind]

https://www.youtrend.it/2022/07/22/simulazione-youtrend-cattaneo-zanetto-co-senza-alleanza-pd-m5s-supermaggioranza-in-parlamento-per-il-centrodestra/

YouTrend has the Right-wing alliance with a small majority of the seats if PD and M5S get into an alliance.    I am skeptical about how transferable the PD and M5S votes are to each other.



It has a bigger Right-wing alliance majority if PD and M5S fight separately.



An a ultra-thin majority for the Right-wing alliance if everyone gangs up on them

[jaichind]

Bloomberg: "Italy’s Democrats are weighing possible alliances for the country’s national elections in September and will decide in the coming days and weeks on the makeup of any new coalitions, party leader Enrico Letta said in an interview with la Repubblica published Sunday."

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) --Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy gains in Italy polls, leading with 23.8%, followed by the Democrats at 22.5% and Matteo Salvini’s League at 13.4%, according to Quorum/Youtrend poll for SkyTG24 published Monday.
Five Star at 9.8%, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia at 8.3%
In case of Democrats’ coalition with centrist parties only, rightwing bloc would win with 45.3% versus 36.3%; in case of Democrats’ coalition with Five Star the rightwing bloc would win 48.1% to 34%

[jaichind]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

Could not one counterargue that if the Right wing bloc is going to win no matter what then Renzi should prioritize holding on to his limited vote base?  Joining a Center-Left bloc would just mean his voters drift back to PD.  There is an argument that Renzi should try to expand his vote base which gives him more bargaining power next election when there is a chance that a Center-Left bloc can win.

[jaichind]

Hom many is not important, is what the point
not all the seats are the same

Yes, this is important given that sometimes these pacts give one group a bunch of the safest seats, or a different group the guaranteed losses. I'm sure Lega will for example get a lot of the north, just given their historic base and current decline.

However, this is only the second major FPTP election in recent history. Last time M5S snuck in and swept the south, and now they will be lucky to get anything. This time is looking like a conservative majority, but with limited data to pull from, only a portion of the seats can be decidedly assumed to be safe for left or right. And depending on the coalition the conservatives might just sweep all but the Left's strongholds - as suggested by a some of the potential alliance models - at which point seat distribution south of Rome won't even matter. So it all seems a bit up in the air.

That is my superficial view as well: that the South will be the battleground on who picks up those MS5 seats.   I assume that FdI will get assigned most of those seats

[jaichind]

If you just look at the support for each of the parties it is clear the Right-wing bloc is in very good shape with the only worry being how effective is vote transfer.  On that, question: How prominent is the party ID of the candidate in the FPTP races on the ballots?  Namely, if the voter is just presented with a ballot of alliances with a choice of voting for the party of his or her choice and the party ID of the alliance candidate is not made clear or prominent then that would be very good news for the Right-wing alliance given the lead of the sum of their party support in polls.

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) --Italy’s centrist Azione party leader Carlo Calenda and the Italia Viva party leader Matteo Renzi are set to meet to iron out last details of an alliance ahead of snap elections next month.

[jaichind]

https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/10/right-wing-coalition-on-course-to-win-italy-election-says-study

"Right-wing coalition on course to win Italy election, says study"

Cattaneo Institute  has it at

                             Lower House       Senate
Right wing bloc          245                   127
Left wing bloc            107                    52
Centrist bloc              17                       6  (my guess, the article says 23 in both houses)
M5S                          27                      12

[jaichind]

Is it me or does it seem that M5S and the Centrist coalition have been gaining ground against both the Right wing and Left wing blocs?

[jaichind]

Bloomberg is doing their own polling average and this week they have MS5 and Centrist bloc gaining ground from both the Right and Left blocs

                         Latest Week, %      Prev Week, %        Change, pp    
Right                            46.2                     47.1                     -0.9    
Center-left                    27.9                     28.9                     -1    
Five Star                       12.6                     11.4                    1.2    
Centrist coalition             6.5                       5.8                    0.7    

[jaichind]

Will be interesting to see if M5S outperforms pre-election polls for the third general election in a row.

[jaichind]

https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-election-candidate-warning-ursula-von-der-leyen/

"Von der Leyen’s warning message to Italy irks election candidates"

Italian politicians asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen not to intervene in domestic politics after she warned that Europe has “the tools” to deal with Italy if things go in a “difficult direction.”

Seems like a dumb move and will only shift votes toward the Right Wing bloc or M5S.

[jaichind]

When do the polls close and exit polls come out tomorrow?  I recall back in 2018 it was actually midnight Rome time.  Is that still the case this time around?

[jaichind]

What is Azione/IV, what makes them different from the PD and why are they not part of the center-left alliance?

I think they refused to be part of the PD alliance if the left-win AVS bloc is going to be part of the alliance so they are running separately. 

[jaichind]

Any livestream and links to results?

[jaichind]

*MELONI'S RIGHT BLOC AT 111-131 seats in senate: RAI Poll

[jaichind]

*MELONI'S RIGHT BLOC AT 227-257 seats in lower house: RAI Poll

[jaichind]

Rai poll has Right-wing bloc vote share at 43%.  SKYTG24 has it at 42%

This is a bit below pre-election polls. Not landslide but solid victory