Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Antonio the Sixth]

So as of today apparently Grillo suddenly suspended the M5S online vote, but Draghi has what one article called "virtually unconditional" support from PD, Lega, FI, and IV, which of course is itself already a fairly comfortable majority in both houses. What does everyone think the Five Stars will end up doing?

Would Lega provide actual voting support in getting the government in place or just abstain from voting if the public support continues?

It's looking increasingly like they'll not only actively support it, but have their own ministers in it. I have to say I didn't see that coming, but there we are. There's no telling how long that will last, of course.

Wow, that's pretty surprising. Haven't been following it really closely, so why is Lega looking to support Draghi?

Gotta be part of the clique that's going to spend those sweet, sweet EU bucks.

In all seriousness, I'm not entirely sure what Salvini is thinking here. I guess he's seen that being in opposition for the past year or so didn't work out for him like he'd hoped, so maybe he's trying to recapture the magic of the yellow-green government (although the practical situation will be very different). There is also still a pro-business (and thus pro-EU) wing within the party, so perhaps he's afraid of alienating it too much.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, these past few weeks have provided fresh new fuel for the "Only in Italy" memes.

What's going to happen within M5S in the coming months will be interesting. Lots of simmering tensions coming to a head (Di Battista is the visible face of it, but lurking in the background is the question of the Movement's relationship with the Casaleggio Associati corporation - the Casaleggio scion doesn't seem to be happy with where the Movement has been going lately). Maybe they'll manage to sweep it under the rug again, but we'll see.

The coolest feature of this new government is that it will have such an ample majority that no single party (not even M5S with its massive parliamentary groups) can bring it down on its own, like Salvini did with Conte I and Renzi did with Conte II. This mean no brinkmanship this time: if one coalition partner isn't happy with what Draghi is doing, he can shut them up and dare them to leave and risk political isolation. This puts Draghi in a stronger position than Conte ever was, of course, but it will also make parliamentary dynamics potentially more powerful. It will be interesting, for example, to see if we find differing majorities on specific issues.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, here we go. This is going to be be an interesting next few months for Italy. Tune in for the most recent developments in this great sitcom!

Here's a new title to reflect the new situation. Let's hope it goes better than Super Mario 1.

[Antonio the Sixth]

omfg I'm dying

trad anime waifu Giorgia-chan. I don't know how to deal with this.

[Antonio the Sixth]

omfg I'm dying

trad anime waifu Giorgia-chan. I don't know how to deal with this.

Why does this sound like an implicit admission of guilt that you're secretly wishing you were Andrea Giambruno now?

Nah, you got it mixed up. What I am is an avid anime fan. I have nothing but contempt for Meloni. It's the association of this wonderful, adorable anime aesthetic with such a vile character that I can't handle.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Journalist and Senator Gianluigi Paragone, who was expelled from M5S a year ago, has decided to go overboard with... I'm not sure how to call his ideology exactly, but he has officially founded a party: Italexit, which is anti-EU, anti-establishment, anti-neoliberal, and 'souverainist'. Actually the party was born months ago, but I have only caught up to it now because lately Paragone is a bit more in the spotlight as one of the few people vocally in opposition to the Draghi government.

I think he is inspiring to Nigel Farage in part, although it is my impression that Farage was much more economically liberal. You could also argue he's going back to the "original values" of M5S that the party has supposedly betrayed, although possibly more radically.

I don't know if his nationalistic socialistic (?) dream has much of a future, nor if it will devolve into being uncomfortably close to that thing which starts with an F, but if it ever gets more traction than having two Senators (there's also ex-M5S Mario Giarrusso), it sounds like a great fit for the mythical "anti-establishment vote".

Paragone used to have a talk show on La7 a few years ago and it was absolute trash. The most bad-faith, uninformed, attention-grabbing drivel that you normally only find on Mediaset channels. I'm glad he's found his calling as a Salvini-lite demagogue, because that's far more suited to his "talents" than journalism.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Journalist and Senator Gianluigi Paragone, who was expelled from M5S a year ago, has decided to go overboard with... I'm not sure how to call his ideology exactly, but he has officially founded a party: Italexit, which is anti-EU, anti-establishment, anti-neoliberal, and 'souverainist'. Actually the party was born months ago, but I have only caught up to it now because lately Paragone is a bit more in the spotlight as one of the few people vocally in opposition to the Draghi government.

Oh my, Michel Onfray says hello

The last thing you guys need is to start importing pretentious French pseudo-inellectual wankery

Oh, don't worry about that. Nobody would think of mistaking Paragone for an intellectual, pseudo or otherwise.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Vito Crimi has announced that all the Deputies and Senators who abstained on the confidence motion will be expelled too just like those who voted No.

I just can't

And I am not even a supporter of those who voted No, mind you. I am just eight years full of the M5S appreciation of purges.

............

Yeah this is suicidal. The M5S groups have already lost, what, over a third of their former members? They won twice as many votes as Lega, but their parliamentary groups are almost identical in size. They're basically just hamstringing themselves.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In a masterful bit of "carpetbagging but not really" incumbent term-limited Naples mayor Luigi De Magistris, who also is a former prosecutor in Calabria (NB: he was indeed born and raised in Naples) has announced his candidacy. De Magistris notoriously was elected two times with a left-leaning anti-PD coalition. Here he has just received the support of Carlo Tansi, a guy who ran with a civic list in 2020.

Huh, weird move. He must be desperate to escape the ire of his arch-enemy De Luca.

I used to like De Magistris but he's proven himself an incompetent buffoon during the COVID crisis. He'll almost certainly go down in flames.

In an even more masterful bit of "carpetbagging and YES really" like he has done a countless number of times, art critic turned politician turned pop culture icon Vittorio Sgarbi has announced his candidacy as well. Sgarbi is notoriously right-leaning, but there's no guarantee as to what his electorate might be.

oh God please no

Speaking of buffoons...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Amazing. He sounds like a true Italian original, in the way that Ozawa Ichiro is a true Japanese original.

Yeah, I think Vittorio Sgarbi is in many ways quintessentially Italian. He actually reminds me of a mid-Kingdom-era politician: liberal, intellectual, non-clerical, shape-shifting, disaffected from the idea of party allegiance.

Totally random but I also found this. Sgarbi has children, but has never cared much for them or raised them. Apparently he once declared this on the matter: "I am against fatherhood. That of the father is not a category I reckon I should belong to. That said I am also against abortion. There are women who have wanted children from me, but never I from them because there cannot be an obligation to become father". Y i k e s

Holy sh*t I didn't know that part.

I didn't know my opinion of Sgarbi could go any lower, but I stand corrected. What a guy.

[Antonio the Sixth]

F**k. He was one of the few good ones.

PD just can't help committing suicide again and again, can it?

[Antonio the Sixth]

All right folks, Battista has been pestering me to update the thread title for a few weeks, and now I can finally do so. I'm not planning on ceding control of this megathread anytime soon.

I don't have much in the way of thoughts on Italian politics lately, it seems to be largely same-old-same-old stuff. There were some fun developments a few months ago, including the hilarious standoff between Conte and Grillo, but that's old news. Mostly now we're just waiting for the inevitable march toward the next general elections and the inevitable victory of the (far-)right. I doubt this government will be doing anything significant except bicker. That is, after all, the natural state of Italian politics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

All right folks, Battista has been pestering me to update the thread title for a few weeks, and now I can finally do so. I'm not planning on ceding control of this megathread anytime soon.

Thank you! Finally.

I don't have much in the way of thoughts on Italian politics lately, it seems to be largely same-old-same-old stuff. There were some fun developments a few months ago, including the hilarious standoff between Conte and Grillo, but that's old news. Mostly now we're just waiting for the inevitable march toward the next general elections and the inevitable victory of the (far-)right. I doubt this government will be doing anything significant except bicker. That is, after all, the natural state of Italian politics.

Oh I have to disagree here, this government is intent on passing a significant justice reform and a tax reform and will have to effectively implement the Recovery Plan, for one. I also think that the local elections might affect our political balance - but maybe I am just deluding myself. We'll see!

I guess that's fair. Ultimately all of this seems pretty futile to me, but maybe I'm being overly gloomy. We shall see.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Speaking of which I somehow had completely missed that former regional president Mario Oliverio made a last-minute entrance in the race and is the fourth and last candidate. I doubt he is getting much support but I have to wonder why the Calabrian centre-left is so keen on vote splitting and self-sabotaging.

The center-left is a joke political bloc, and Calabria is a joke region, so that means the Calabrian center-left is a joke squared.

Anyway, God I hope turnout is robust today. It'd be truly pitiful if we couldn't even break 50%.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Speaking of which I somehow had completely missed that former regional president Mario Oliverio made a last-minute entrance in the race and is the fourth and last candidate. I doubt he is getting much support but I have to wonder why the Calabrian centre-left is so keen on vote splitting and self-sabotaging.

The center-left is a joke political bloc, and Calabria is a joke region, so that means the Calabrian center-left is a joke squared.

Anyway, God I hope turnout is robust today. It'd be truly pitiful if we couldn't even break 50%.

I mean Mario Oliverio won with 61% of the vote in 2014 so this sounds a bit excessive. Although we all know that 2014 was almost literally worlds apart from today. Thanks, Renzi!

I'm not saying the Calabrian center-left can't win. This is Italy, being a joke and winning elections are far from mutually exclusive.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The polls have closed and we have the first projections.

Left-wing candidates are on track to win outright in Bologna, Milan, and Naples (not sure if anyone was expecting that!). Torino and Rome will have classic left vs right runoffs (with the left-wing candidate ahead in Torino, and the right-wing one ahead in Rome but most of the outstanding votes are left-leaning). In Calabria the right is winning easily, and De Magistris is doing almost as well as Bruni.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Runoff in Trieste too, this one with the right-wing incumbent pretty favored though (he's in the mid-40s with the left-winger in the mid-30s).

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK so the projections are changing a lot. No idea what to make of it, but the newest SWG projection has Gualtieri and Raggi tied for second in Rome. The left's margin of victory has also come down a bit in Bologna, while the right is doing much better in Calabria.

It's starting to look like the exit polls were seriously off.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The polls have closed and we have the first projections.

Left-wing candidates are on track to win outright in Bologna, Milan, and Naples (not sure if anyone was expecting that!).

Naples has had a leftist mayor for more than 40 years and the leftist parties rallied around Manfredi, so it is probably not that much of a surprise

True, and apparently the polls did show it was a possibility. I guess I was assuming a bit of reversion to the mean from Naples, since it's not really left-wing at the national level. But the PD-M5S union worked wonders there.

Anyway, Rome is... weird. All the projections now have Gualtieri ahead of Raggi (24% to 21% in the SWG one now), but still quite an underperformance given how strong the left is everywhere else.

[Antonio the Sixth]

191 polling stations out of 192

Siena parliamentary by-election

Letta 49.34%
Centre-right 39.36%

That doesn't seem like a great result, honestly.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway, Rome is... weird. All the projections now have Gualtieri ahead of Raggi (24% to 21% in the SWG one now), but still quite an underperformance given how strong the left is everywhere else.

Well if you consider for one Calenda's presence and his likely strong appeal to the kind of rich educated demographic that has trended left recently, secondly that an incumbent M5S candidate in a place like Rome is bound to do better than a non-incumbent one somewhere up North like Turin or Milan, it was never surprising that Gualtieri's absolute result would be comparatively weak. Although I can concede he appears to be doing somewhat worse than expected.

Yeah, it makes sense, but still disappointing.

I have to hope Gualtieri is still favored in the runoff, though. He should get a clear majority of Raggi voters and hopefully most Calenda voters as well.

[Antonio the Sixth]

New SWG projection has Michetti at 31%, Gualtieri 26%, Raggi 20%. Starting to look somewhere halfway between the exit polls and the early SWG projection. Here's hoping the gap narrows a little more in the next updates.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In the end, the first SWG projection was wildly off the mark. Gualtieri is only 3 points behind Michetti, and a whopping 8 points ahead of Raggi (who, as Battista mentioned, came in fourth). It's pretty ridiculous when the notoriously-awful exit polls come closer to the final result than the supposedly more accurate projections.

Battista has provided me with Municipio-level data, and I'd be happy to make a few maps out of it if someone can provide me with a Paint-friendly base map. Some of the patterns here are pretty hilarious.

In other major cities, the left won outright in Milan (57.73%), Bologna (61.9%) and Naples (62.9%). Those are landslide margins that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, and Naples in particular was a stellar proof of concept for what a PD-M5S alliance can achieve.

The left-wing candidate is also in a surprisingly strong position in Turin, having won 43.86% against 38.9% for the right-wing candidate who was seen as the favorite. The other main contenders were the M5S (9.01%) and the lefty list (2.53%). Those should theoretically favor the left as well, although there is a lot of bad blood between PD and M5S in the city, and with low turnout anything can happen, so I wouldn't could this out yet. In Trieste meanwhile, there will be a runoff as well but the right-wing incumbent is clearly favored (also and anti-Vax list got 5% there lol, joke city).

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would also like to mention one very famous mayor who is running for re-election this year, even if his city is not particularly significant beyond being a provincial seat: Benevento's Clemente Mastella, a household name from the Berlusconi era notable for starting a load of "centrist" parties, shifting alliances as he pleased, managing to be a minister both under Berlusconi and under Prodi, causing the downfall of the Prodi II government. A true inland Appenninic Campanian original - I assume he will be easily re-elected.

Shockingly, he has been forced into a runoff, winning only 49.33%. His main opponent seems to be a PD-backed candidate with 32.34%. I assume he'll still win easily.

Also, in Salerno, De Luca's handpicked successor Vincenzo Napoli won with "only" 57.4%, quite a drop from the 70.5% he won last time. His main opposition will be M5S-led.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Green shoots of recovery for the Italian left or too early to tell?

I'd put this at too early to tell, although this was a pretty rosy result - if anything because I want to wait for the Rome runoff's result. On the other hand I don't think it is too early to say that this was a concrete confirmation of Lega's substantial slippage in favour of Fratelli d'Italia and a disappointing moment for Salvini more than anyone else.

Yeah, a lot has to do with specific local issues or candidates, but at least (and especially if Rome and Turin go left as well) this election has proved that the right is not quite the unbeatable juggernaut I thought it was. It's still not going to be easy to beat at the national level, for a whole host of reasons, but now there's a somewhat plausible path to it if PD and M5S can form a proper alliance.