Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Antonio the Sixth]

It sounds like Draghi really wants out regardless, even though he could go on without M5S. Tbh, he seems to have gotten sick of the job after he failed to be elected President last Winter, and might have been looking for an excuse to ride off into the sunset. Still though, that's a pretty awful time to do it, and I'd much rather he stay on (although admittedly giving Salvini control over when the next elections happen would be its own can of worms).

[Antonio the Sixth]

It sounds like Draghi really wants out regardless, even though he could go on without M5S. Tbh, he seems to have gotten sick of the job after he failed to be elected President last Winter, and might have been looking for an excuse to ride off into the sunset. Still though, that's a pretty awful time to do it, and I'd much rather he stay on (although admittedly giving Salvini control over when the next elections happen would be its own can of worms).

What control would Salvini have? It's not like he can keep propping up Draghi but then pull the plug in the middle of budget negotiations, and I don't think it would make much difference to vote in January 2023 or March 2023.

I mean it would be a silly thing to do, but you never know with these people. Either way, it doesn't seem like Draghi is interested in exploring the option.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is there any chance that Draghi will in the next elections? Is he thinking about a new party?

He'd be lucky to do as well as Monti and Dini when they tried that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yep, it's over.

No one wants to be responsible for the fall of the government, but everyone (except PD, IV etc.) has basically made it clear they're not available to continue on. Including Draghi, who imposed very harsh conditions on M5S and also Lega to come back to the fold. Honestly good on him, I respect him saying "this is my agenda, take it or leave it" rather than desperately trying to woo everyone off. I still think this is a terrible time to have a caretaker government, but oh well. Democracy is messy and I'm glad we're still one.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Senate confirmed its confidence to Draghi, but FI and Lega skipped the vote and M5S abstained, so the result was pretty pathetic. Draghi is expected to resign tomorrow after the confidence vote in the Chamber.

And Mattarella will most likely call for new elections to be held on October 2.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Average of the polls conducted in the past week:
FdI 22.8%
PD 22.2%
Lega 14.6%
M5S 11.0%
FI 8.2%
+E/Azione 4.6%
Misc. left of PD 4.4%
IV 2.6%
Italexit (lol) 2.4%

So yeah. On those numbers a united right is at 45.6%, enough to win a comfortable majority even if there's some degree of consolidation. Of course it's not necessarily impossible to bring it down - especially as they're catching a lot of flak for their role in torpedoing Draghi in this final act. We'll see how it plays out, but this is the election that should make you nervous if you care about the future of the EU and NATO.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

No, but we'll probably find out pretty soon, given the relatively short filing deadlines.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This will be the first GE after the expiration of Berlusconi’s public office ban.

Meloni’s party will probably do best, but once the results are in, the deals are being made and the regular instability of Italian politics is threatening new governments, he could get much leverage out of what is set to be a small Forza Italia group.

Don’t sleep on the corrupt king!

Paradoxically then, he wouldn't want his coalition to do too well - otherwise Lega and FdI might have a majority on their own (nightmare scenario, but sadly plausible). So that might lead to some fun, er, teamwork depending on how the polls look.

[Antonio the Sixth]

*Surely* Di Maio, Toti and Renzi have to work together? If not with the PD at least with each other - otherwise they all go down. I get they are egos, but they can’t possibly think they have any hope of relevance without cooperation.

I’m resigned that this won’t happen, and Meloni will win an even bigger majority than the polls show because this is the world we live in - but still, someone should try and broker a deal across the
Pro-Eu/Pro Nato centre & left.

Di Maio and Renzi specifically working together seems. Rather implausible given their history, but then again, stranger things have happened in Italian politics. If they end up together it will almost certainly be as part of a PD-led coalition, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

*Surely* Di Maio, Toti and Renzi have to work together? If not with the PD at least with each other - otherwise they all go down. I get they are egos, but they can’t possibly think they have any hope of relevance without cooperation.

I’m resigned that this won’t happen, and Meloni will win an even bigger majority than the polls show because this is the world we live in - but still, someone should try and broker a deal across the
Pro-Eu/Pro Nato centre & left.

Di Maio and Renzi specifically working together seems. Rather implausible given their history, but then again, stranger things have happened in Italian politics. If they end up together it will almost certainly be as part of a PD-led coalition, though.

Di Maio seems to have made a complete about face on everything M5S stood for though and embraced the EU.

I mean, yeah, but that doesn't mean old grudges are suddenly forgotten. The rhetoric between PD and M5S before and during the 2018 campaign was extremely violent (with some M5S figure at one point even devolving into QAnon-adjacent rhetoric). And Renzi's only reason for being in politics at this point seems to be to make life hell for his enemies. It's possible they end up together for self-preservation purposes, but it won't be a happy alliance.

[Antonio the Sixth]

or quite a number of Southern voters (particularly in Sicily I think), who appear to skew unemployed.

There seemed to be a lean towards housewives, or am I misremembering?

Probably. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if the strongest predictor of FI vote was how many hours of TV per day a person watched on average between, say, 1990 and 2010.

[Antonio the Sixth]

or quite a number of Southern voters (particularly in Sicily I think), who appear to skew unemployed.

There seemed to be a lean towards housewives, or am I misremembering?

Probably. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if the strongest predictor of FI vote was how many hours of TV per day a person watched on average between, say, 1990 and 2010.

A rather exhaustive study came to that conclusion — Mediaset really dumbed down Italians into voting for Silvio.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20150958

Thanks for sharing. This is terrifying but not at all surprising, as it's been the sort of thing people in Italy have noticed anecdotally for a long time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Letta confirms that the alliance with M5S is dead and buried but opens to a broad "progressive democratic" alliance including IV, Azione, IpF and the whole galaxy to the left of PD. It's exceedingly unlikely that all of them will play ball. We'll see how many he manages to get.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

In addition to what has been said, it's just not the case empirically that parties do better when they run autonomously rather than as part of a coalition. If anything, experience suggests the opposite. PRC, PdCI and the Greens got a combined 10% when they ran as part of L'Unione in 2006. Two years later when they ran against the PD-backed coalition they only got 3%. SEL in 2013 did better than RC as well. And before you say this is only an issue on the left, centrist outfits running outside of the main two coalitions also have a rich history of underperforming their initial polling. Chances are this is what will happen to Renzi as well if he decides to run alone - and given that his starting point is just 2-3%, that doesn't bode well for his survival.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/SBidimedia/status/1552396435601121286

Repubblica writes that the center-right has closed an agreement for the division of the 221 single-member constituencies on these numbers:
FDI 98 (44%) Lega 70 (32%) FI 42 (19%) NcI 11 (5%)

The parties' share taking the latest average polls were:
FDI 49% Lega 32% FI 18% NcI 1%

That's a pretty good deal for FdI, all considered. aside from NCI being overrepresented (which is kind of inevitable for a fake party that exists as a personal vehicle for a bunch of has-beens), they're getting almost exactly their share of the polls, which is very generous considering that the other parties were arguing for taking into account past results. At the end of the day FdI has the most to gain from the right-wing coalition to win a majority, as that would almost certainly make Meloni PM. Of course, Salvini and Berlusconi are also putting their political survival at stake, so I'm not surprised they found an agreement. The Italian right always falls in line (while the Italian left usually falls apart - bur inshallah maybe not this time).

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's recently come out that both Salvini and Berlusconi had meetings with Russian diplomats shortly before breaking with Draghi. How unexpected and shocking.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's recently come out that both Salvini and Berlusconi had meetings with Russian diplomats shortly before breaking with Draghi. How unexpected and shocking.

More precisely, Salvini and a close associate of his (Antonio Capuano, former Forza Italia Deputy) had these meetings - related to Salvini's famous planned trip to Moscow - where they also discussed the possibility of Lega leaving the Draghi government. La Stampa (the newspaper breaking the story) attributed the documents to Italian intelligence but Franco Gabrielli, Draghi's undersecretary, quickly denied that.

Berlusconi had a meeting too (he denies it, of course, but it's being reported by Repubblica and others so I know who I trust).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I'd say FdI is the most pro-NATO and FI the most pro-EU. Weird dynamic to be sure.

Anyway, feels like I'd try my hand at a simple polling tracker (just of an average of the last polls from each individual pollster who published one in the past week) as these are otherwise quite noisy. Here's those conducted since 07/21, the day of dissolution:

PD/Art1: 23.8%
FdI: 23.6%
Lega: 13.9%
M5S: 10.1%
FI: 7.6%
+E/Azione: 5%
SI/Greens: 3.3%
IV: 2.4%
Italexit: 2.1%
IpF: 1.2%

United right at 45.1% (-0.5). Hypothetical united center-left at 35.7% (+1.5). M5S lost 0.9.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How are results going to be broken down? By party, or just by coalition?

Both. Parties for the PR seats, coalitions for FPP.

[Antonio the Sixth]

And speaking of which, Letta and Calenda have reached a coalition agreement. Apparently they're going to split the FPP seats 70-30, which is frankly ridiculous when their polling numbers are more on the order of 80-20 or 85-15. I guess Calenda drove a hard bargain, and Letta felt he really needed him (if nothing else, to isolate Renzi).

But now many parties to the left of PD are dissatisfied and making noises about leaving the negotiating table with PD. We'll see what they do, but I'll still count today as a relative win for the paltry chances we have at stopping a right-wing majority.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Probably Letta will now do separate agreements with AVS and IC to likely ceede around 15-20% of its 70% share of FPTP candidates and some safe districts... and not write off if the agreement with the liberals will also convince Renzi' IV to finally rejoin and take some of the Azione/+Eu' 30% share of FPTP candidates.

That seems pretty optimistic to me, but inshallah you're right. It would be hilarious to see Renzi be cowed like that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Here's this week's polling average.

FdI: 23.9%
PD/A1: 23.6%
Lega: 13.2%
M5S: 10.4%
FI: 8.2%
+E/Az: 5.5%
SI/EV: 3.4%
Italexit: 2.7%
IV: 2.6%
IC: 1.2%

Right at 45.3% (+0.2). Hypothetical center-left (now without IV which has confirmed it's out) at 33.7% (+0.4). M5S gained 0.3 points as well. Overall not much movement, the only significant change from last week is Lega losing a bit and FI and +E/Azione gaining a bit

[Antonio the Sixth]

PD has completed agreements with SI/EV and with IC. These appear to all be separate, bilateral agreements, so it remains unclear if they'll be able to form a single cohesive coalition including +E/Az as well. Still, that should ensure that they avoid competing against each other in the vast majority of seats. It looks like PD agreed to a 80-20 division of seats with SI/EV, and a 92-8 one with IC. Again, like with Calenda earlier, these are more generous seat distributions than you'd expect from poll numbers. I'm assuming that PD will keep for itself a disproportionate share of winnable seats, though. Either that or Letta is really desperate to have an agreement at any cost (which I can respect tbh).

[Antonio the Sixth]

What a joke. Hopefully he and Renzi will both crash and burn.