Italian Elections and Politics 2018: Yellow Tide

[Antonio the Sixth]

How'd the first ballot go?

Provisional count says 536 blank votes, 120 for Imposimato (a judge who won the M5S' online primary), 49 for Feltri (right-wing journalist who was the Lega and FdI's candidate), 37 for Castellina (SEL candidate), 23 for Rodotà, and 174 others.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why is the right so against Mattarella? I was under the impression that he was strongly Catholic and more or less down-the-middle, and originally came from the center-left faction of DC. Is the Berlusconist right simply not as friendly with the Catholic Church and Catholic politics as the Italian right traditionally has been? Because especially after the defection of NCD--which as I understand it includes the more Christian-democratic and social-conservative elements of the former PdL; is that accurate?--that wouldn't particularly surprise me. Does it have anything to do with the Vatican endorsing Monti in 2013?

Mattarella actually has a bit of an history of clashes with Berlusconi. He resigned from the Andreotti government in 1990 when a law was passed which legalized the situation of Berlusconi's TV networks. He was also a big fan of Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who regularly clashed with Berlusconi during his presidency. More secondarily, he drafted the famous "Mattarellum" electoral law, in place from 1994 to 2006, which Berlusconi's government repealed when it came to power.

The interesting aspect is that, historically, the left-wing of the DC where Mattarella comes from was probably one of the most anti-Berlusconi factions of the old First Republic (after the PCI/PDS wing). Berlusconi essentially aggregated the Craxi wing of the PSI (hence why he has good relationships with someone like Amato) and the DC's right. He's always seen the Catholic Left as a significant threat, as his hatred of someone like Prodi shows.

[Antonio the Sixth]

NCD opposes Mattarella just as much as Berlusconi, actually. Alfano was reportedly quite pissed off by this choice. So I don't think that was really at play. It's not like NCD is an especially Catholic party as compared to FI, the fault lines have become very different over the last few years. Although it is allied with Casini's very-Catholic UDC, and Casini himself was rumored as a potential candidate, so he might have felt "if it's a Catholic, it has to be me".

[Antonio the Sixth]

Here's a more detailed tally.

Ferdinando Imposimato   120
Vittorio Feltri   49
Luciana Castellina   37
Emma Bonino   25
Stefano Rodotà   23
Gabriele Albertini   14
Claudio Sabelli Fioretti   11
Romano Prodi   9
Mauro Morelli   9
Massimo Caleo   8
Marcello Gualdani   6
Pier Luigi Bersani   5
Sergio Mattarella   5
Others  83
Blank  538
Invalid  33

[Antonio the Sixth]

Obligatory

Ironically, Mattarella's profile is as similar to Scalfaro's as it could get.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Second ballot is basically the same as the first: 531 blank, 123 Imposimato, 51 Feltri, 34 Castellina, 23 Bonino, 22 Rodotà, 14 Sabelli Fioretti, 10 Gualdani, and various others.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can someone please give a rundown of all the candidates and who is backing them?

There are only two real candidates: Mattarella, who is Renzi's candidate and has the support of SEL, the centrists, and possibly NCD and even the M5S dissidents; and Imposimato, the M5S candidate. Everything else is purely symbolic.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Third ballot (and last of the joke ballots): 513 blank, 126 Imposimato, 56 Feltri, 33 Castellina, 23 Bonino, 22 Rodotà, loads and loads of small candidates.

[Antonio the Sixth]

NCD will support Mattarella, so it's almost a done deal.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Voting is now ongoing for the 4th ballot. Theoretically, Mattarella should get at least 643 votes (government majority+SEL). There will certainly be a few losses, but they could be compensated by additional votes coming from M5S dissidents and FI renegades. 505 votes are needed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Some NCD parliamentarians broke out with the party and said they weren't voting Mattarella. So I'm gonna hazard a prediction and say he'll probably finish with around 600 votes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Voting has ended, counting has begun

You can follow it online here: http://www.la7.it/dirette-tv

[Antonio the Sixth]

With around half the votes counted, Mattarella already has 337 votes. This is looking like a landslide.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Mattarella at 450 (with around 700 counted).

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's done.

[Antonio the Sixth]

665, almost two thirds.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Official results:

665 Mattarella
127 Imposimato
46 Feltri
17 Rodotà
22 others
105 blank
13 null

[Antonio the Sixth]

Renzi is a BEAST.

I didn't say it before because I didn't want to jinx it, but yeah, Renzi just proved that he is really a masterful politician. He managed to milk Berlusconi and FI for all its worth on the vote for institutional reforms, then managed to reunify the increasingly divided PD with the Presidential election. Renzi is the only left-wing politician who understands the need to take a gamble, to risk a little to gain a lot. Any other PD leader would have spent weeks to cautiously craft an agreement with Berlusconi, thus losing credibility in public opinion and opening himself for defections inside his party. Renzi chose to think about the bigger picture, and made to both his party and the right an offer they couldn't refuse. He used all the tools he could (including blackmailing Alfano with threats of a government crisis) to ensure it would work, and it paid off. Now Berlusconi is marginalized even within his own party, the PD  is speaking with the same voice, and for the next 7 years Italy will have a President who won't bow down to anybody's whims.

In short, Renzi isn't the leader the left deserves, but he's the leader the left needs.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The first Sicilian to be President, right?

Yup. And that's another proof that Renzi carefully planned his game: he knew that Alfano, as a fellow Sicilian (along with other NCD politicians like Schifani), would never have had the guts to block Mattarella.

Renzi is a BEAST.

Obviously Renzi is great at politics, but what does the left think about him as far as policy is concerned? (I haven't followed Italian politics at all since the 2013 election or so).

Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not a fan of his economic policies so far, which have tended to go toward greater deregulation and flexibility. But I don't share the outrage that the PD's left has vented either (especially considering what previous left-wing PMs have done).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Mattarella will be sworn in on Tuesday morning, and take office early in the afternoon.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I actually have high hopes for Italy now. It's been a long time since I've been able to say that.

Having said that...any chance at all of getting the Statute of Workers back?

I have a hard time seeing that. Even if his relationships with the PD's left-wing have improved a lot with this election, Renzi isn't the kind of person who backtrack easily. Maybe the decrees that will give a precise content to the Jobs Act will be a bit "softer" than expected. I guess he can bargain that with his party in exchange for a swift approval of the electoral reform.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This reconstruction by Renzi of the days that led to Mattarella's election is really enlightening. Obviously it should be taken with a grain of salt, but from what he says it appears that the clash with Berlusconi had begun days before it was made official by Renzi. Berlusconi was pushing hard for Amato, and - here's the real news - he had made contacts with several leaders of the PD's old guard (chief of them D'Alema), who also had good relationships to Amato. That probably explains why Renzi felt the urge to publicly endorse Mattarella, in order to make an offer his party couldn't refuse. So not only did he win big with this result, but he also dodged many bullets, considering how bad the election of Amato would have been perceived by the public opinion.

In some way, all this really reminds of late First Republic alignments. You have on one side the old CAF (Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani) axis, an alliance of the PSI and of the DC's right, of which Berlusconi is the direct political heir. On the other side the "popular" wing of the DC (of which Mattarella was one of the key figures, under the lead of the old boss Ciriaco De Mita). Interestingly, the "postcommunist" left has often played the tip of the balance between these two factions throughout the Second Republic (D'Alema always had cordial relations with Berlusconi, for example, and he screwed over the "popular" Prodi more than once). Of course these alignment aren't relevant in everyday politics anymore, but it seems they can resurface on occasions like these. Fascinating.

[Antonio the Sixth]

An unofficial "list" based on the time spent in the voting booth indicates that there are as many as 43 (out of 145) Forza Italia electors who disobeyed Berlusconi's order and voted for Mattarella. They seem to be led by Denis Verdini, one of Berlusconi's most influential advisors and and the architect of the alliance with Renzi. The crisis inside FI really runs deep, and it seems like some people's allegiances are where you'd expect them least.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like Renzi's success is lifting him up in the public opinion too. In the weekly EMG poll, his approval rating is up by 3 points and PD voting intentions are up by 1.5 points. FI and M5S lose almost one point each.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't understand why some leading ex-commies like D'Alema are cordial with Berlusconi. Does it have to do with trying to establish bipolarism which gave them the chance to get into government regularly? Don't they understand that one anomaly (non-commie majority vs. commie minority) has been replaced by another anomaly (Berlusconi, followers, allies and occassional allies vs. the rest)?

D'Alema does this because he's a vile, sneaky, despicable schemer who is more interested in eliminating his rivals within the party than in helping his party thrive. He screwed over the left with glee more than once - the last of which occurred during the previous presidential election just two years ago. Thank God he has become largely irrelevant since Renzi took over.