Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Vittorio Sgarbi's political career!
NB: I am probably missing something.

- A self described liberal.
- Despite not living in the Marche at all, in 1990 he accepted a PCI candidacy for the municipal council of Pesaro, then backed down and accepted one for the PSI in the small town of San Severino Marche, where he was elected.
- Between 1992 and 1993 he even became mayor of the latter town thanks to DC and MSI votes (mayors were not elected directly in Italy back then)...
- ...but in the meantime he had been elected Deputy with PLI at the 1992 election [in Sardinia]!
- In 1994 he was re-elected Deputy with Forza Italia [in Calabria] but he spent all the legislature sitting in the mixed group.
- In 1996 again he was elected to the Chamber in the FI lists [in Friuli-Venezia Giulia] but inscribed in the mixed group.
- In 1999 he briefly stopped his crazy wandering and ran for mayor of his hometown of Ferrara and for MEP from the North-East, both with Forza Italia. He was only elected to the latter.
- He left Bruxelles when in 2001 he was again re-elected Deputy with FI [in Veneto].
- He became Undersecretary of Cultural Heritage in the Berlusconi II government but he had, uhm, strong opinions on the matter and he was removed from the post after a year.
- Sgarbi then ran in the 2004 European election with whatever was left of the PRI (not even came close to being elected).
- In 2005 he switched to the centre-left and decided to run in the 2006 parliamentary election with a small centre-left list, but this time his luck ran out...
- ...but he also stipulated an agreement with the centre-right candidate for mayor of Milan, and when she was elected he became assessore [i.e. member of the municipal executive] for cultural heritage.
- In 2008 he was removed from the post but he did a honey badger move and just ran for mayor of the Sicilian village of Salemi with a centrist coalition and was elected.
- He resigned from that in 2012 and then the municipal administration was dissolved and commissioned because apparently some of the people who had supported his candidacy were using him as a cover and were doing affairs with the mafia behind his back.
- He then ran for mayor of another Sicilian town, Cefalù, in the same year, without getting elected.
- He spent the following years flipping between various assessore offices around the country.
- In 2017 he founded his own political movement called Rinascimento [Renaissance], and also had an upgrade to member of a regional executive, being nominated assessore of cultural heritage of Sicily.
- It only lasted some months because in 2018 he came back home and ran for Deputy with Forza Italia. He ran in a single-member constituency in Campania, where he was destroyed by the M5S tide (precisely by Luigi Di Maio himself lmao), but also in the proportional lists... in the Modena-Ferrara constituency finally! He was elected from the latter.
- In 2018 he also ran for mayor of the small town of Sutri in Lazio, because of course he did, and won. He then - surprise surprise - switched from FI to the mixed group in the Chamber.
- In 2020 he was the FI list leader in the Emilia-Romagna regional election. He was elected but never took his seat because he preferred to remain in Parliament.

In this very moment Vittorio Sgarbi is the mayor of Sutri, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies.
He is also a murmured 2021 candidate for a) mayor of Rome b) mayor of Milan c) president of Calabria.
Of course, as you can guess he spends way more time explaining art and going to talk shows than administering Sutri. However one notable thing he did is that apparently he tried to ban mask wearing in Sutri last August *eyeroll*

EDIT: Forgot to add that apparently in 2018 his reasoning for moving to the mixed group again was "I invited Silvio to Sutri to celebrate my election but he didn't come. Hrumph ".

Pure gold, love that guy.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

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

[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.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Zingaretti resigns. Good night sweet prince

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Yes, Nicola Zingaretti has just resigned from the leadership of PD, after a lot of tensions with ex-renziani.

I don't know what will happen next, but I start from the assumption that PD will do something stupid until proven otherwise.

[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?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

goodbye sweet prince

[FrancoAgo]

And local elections postponed to 15th September -15th October

[Diouf]

Happy to see Zingaretti out after the rumours that he wanted to make a deal with Salvini on a horrible majoritarian electoral system. Hopefully some of the pro-PR voices can now help push a good electoral law through

[SPQR]

It was a surprise move - and I still think it might be a tactical one, aimed at being reconfirmed at the national assembly and shut all internal minorities.

In general, I think a discussion about PD's placement and alliances is necessary, the push towards M5S is too strong to ignore. Conte has been praised and defended beyond all sense, and now if he is to lead M5S there is a real risk that PD ends up losing masses of votes.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

It was a surprise move - and I still think it might be a tactical one, aimed at being reconfirmed at the national assembly and shut all internal minorities.

In general, I think a discussion about PD's placement and alliances is necessary, the push towards M5S is too strong to ignore. Conte has been praised and defended beyond all sense, and now if he is to lead M5S there is a real risk that PD ends up losing masses of votes.

I agree that the placement with regards to M5S has not been dealt with greatly, but I don't think that the solution is to lapdog Renzi instead, and my understanding is that the centrist currents definitely want to lapdog Renzi.

[Estrella]

It was a surprise move - and I still think it might be a tactical one, aimed at being reconfirmed at the national assembly and shut all internal minorities.

In general, I think a discussion about PD's placement and alliances is necessary, the push towards M5S is too strong to ignore. Conte has been praised and defended beyond all sense, and now if he is to lead M5S there is a real risk that PD ends up losing masses of votes.

I agree that the placement with regards to M5S has not been dealt with greatly, but I don't think that the solution is to lapdog Renzi instead, and my understanding is that the centrist currents definitely want to lapdog Renzi.

You'd think they'd see Renzi's MASSIVE SUPPORT of 3-4% and put two and two together.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

It was a surprise move - and I still think it might be a tactical one, aimed at being reconfirmed at the national assembly and shut all internal minorities.

In general, I think a discussion about PD's placement and alliances is necessary, the push towards M5S is too strong to ignore. Conte has been praised and defended beyond all sense, and now if he is to lead M5S there is a real risk that PD ends up losing masses of votes.

I agree that the placement with regards to M5S has not been dealt with greatly, but I don't think that the solution is to lapdog Renzi instead, and my understanding is that the centrist currents definitely want to lapdog Renzi.

You'd think they'd see Renzi's MASSIVE SUPPORT of 3-4% and put two and two together.

But maybe their way of putting two and two together is that if they court Renzi to join back PD they get that 3-4% as a boost in the polls, instead.

[FrancoAgo]

imho, if Renzi join back to PD, this go down of 3/4%, Renzi is hated from almost 80% of italians.
Renzi party is more on 2-3%, and probably less, smaller parties are overrapresented in the polls

[CumbrianLefty]

imho, if Renzi join back to PD, this go down of 3/4%, Renzi is hated from almost 80% of italians.
Renzi party is more on 2-3%, and probably less, smaller parties are overrapresented in the polls

And its fair to say that never used to be the case, its almost as if he is Blair on steroids.

[Flyersfan232]

Has league ever considered a san Marino branch of the party? That political lane seem to be wide open

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Has league ever considered a san Marino branch of the party? That political lane seem to be wide open

1. The average Italian never thinks about San Marino.

2. Even though before Mani pulite the San Marino party system was remarkably similar to the Italian one, this is not because their parties were branches of ours. Of course for example the Sanmarinese Christian Democratic Party had a close relationship with the Christian Democracy and so on, but they were functionally separate things (actually the PDCS still exists, which is pretty funny).

3. The concerns that have sustained Lega along the years (regional imbalance, federalism, immigration, the European Union) don't exist in any way in San Marino, so I am not sure there is any demand for such a political lane.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Nicola Zingaretti has endorsed former President of the Council Enrico Letta as new PD secretary. Unless something weird happens at the party Assembly, he should become such.
Letta of course is remembered for having been basically ousted from the presidency of the Council by Renzi in 2014, shortly after Renzi's infamous "Enrico stai sereno" [Enrico, don't worry] tweet, then leaving PD in 2015 because of disagreement with the florentine yuppie himself, spending the following years as a professor and a policy expert around the world, and later getting back into PD after Zingaretti's election.

This behaviour that would arguably collocate him as closer to the left wing of the party is quite interesting for someone who comes from a DC/PPI/Margherita background. Honestly if he actually becomes secretary then PD will have managed to clearly beat my low expectations, although what will happen next remains to be seen.

[SPQR]

Letta is officially the new secretary of PD.
Today he made a good speech, widely praised, mostly about PD having a strong identity and not being subalternate to M5S.
Essentially, after thanking Zingaretti in the very beginning, he went the opposite direction...

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Letta is officially the new secretary of PD.
Today he made a good speech, widely praised, mostly about PD having a strong identity and not being subalternate to M5S.
Essentially, after thanking Zingaretti in the very beginning, he went the opposite direction...

Letta's speech was pretty good, yes.
I wouldn't characterize this as going the opposite direction of Zingaretti, since there is much more to PD's placement than its relationship with M5S. I think it had quite a bit of shades of Prodi.
Anyway, for now I am feeling like PD managed to prove my assumptions wrong and make a good move. It should be noted that the latest polls have been quite rough for the party, seeing how this will evolve now that Letta has been elected is going to be of much interest.

[SPQR]

Letta is officially the new secretary of PD.
Today he made a good speech, widely praised, mostly about PD having a strong identity and not being subalternate to M5S.
Essentially, after thanking Zingaretti in the very beginning, he went the opposite direction...

Letta's speech was pretty good, yes.
I wouldn't characterize this as going the opposite direction of Zingaretti, since there is much more to PD's placement than its relationship with M5S. I think it had quite a bit of shades of Prodi.
Anyway, for now I am feeling like PD managed to prove my assumptions wrong and make a good move. It should be noted that the latest polls have been quite rough for the party, seeing how this will evolve now that Letta has been elected is going to be of much interest.

Well, all of the talk in the latest months was purely about how close PD should be to M5S and how good Conte was and should be regarded as leader of the progressives, brought about by Zingaretti and his close advisors (such as Bettini).
Putting back PD under the spotlights, while obvious and necessary, is in quite sharp contrast to this.

[Ethelberth]

Has league ever considered a san Marino branch of the party? That political lane seem to be wide open

1. The average Italian never thinks about San Marino.

2. Even though before Mani pulite the San Marino party system was remarkably similar to the Italian one, this is not because their parties were branches of ours. Of course for example the Sanmarinese Christian Democratic Party had a close relationship with the Christian Democracy and so on, but they were functionally separate things (actually the PDCS still exists, which is pretty funny).

3. The concerns that have sustained Lega along the years (regional imbalance, federalism, immigration, the European Union) don't exist in any way in San Marino, so I am not sure there is any demand for such a political lane.

The most hilarious party used to be Sanmarinese National Alliance. 

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Has league ever considered a san Marino branch of the party? That political lane seem to be wide open

1. The average Italian never thinks about San Marino.

2. Even though before Mani pulite the San Marino party system was remarkably similar to the Italian one, this is not because their parties were branches of ours. Of course for example the Sanmarinese Christian Democratic Party had a close relationship with the Christian Democracy and so on, but they were functionally separate things (actually the PDCS still exists, which is pretty funny).

3. The concerns that have sustained Lega along the years (regional imbalance, federalism, immigration, the European Union) don't exist in any way in San Marino, so I am not sure there is any demand for such a political lane.

The most hilarious party used to be Sanmarinese National Alliance. 

Yes, but they unsurprisingly never really went anywhere, since San Marino has a structural preference for parties positioned on the left.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Some random updates just because:

- There will be a round of reopenings, most significantly of schools (and in some cases universities, though as far as I reckon individual institutions have ample latitude), starting on April 26th.
- The Draghi government has presented a revised version of the Recovery Plan, but unsurprisingly it seems the government parties are divided on it.
- President of the Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico has been proposed as a possible CSX+M5S candidate for the mayor seat in Naples. I prefer not to comment.
- Tomorrow is Liberation Day, and I am looking forward to hard right concern trolling about it being a dIviSive hOlidAy.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

It is probably time to give some sort of monthly update for whoever reads this:

- As I long expected would sometime happen, Lega, PD and FdI are now all crammed together between 18-19% and 21-22% in the polls and tightening.
- Relatedly, Lega and FdI are skirmishing over everything and Salvini and Meloni have not had proper coalition meetings in months. What were considered the likely centre-right candidates for mayor in Milan (Gabriele Albertini, former mayor) and in Rome (Guido Bertolaso, former Civil Protection chief and therefore someone with plenty of experience with emergencies and disasters) have both renounced.
- Confidence in the Draghi government seems to be pretty high. Considering COVID is by far the primary focus and what we have seen so far has been ever-accelerating vaccination rates and some rounds of reopenings, I am not surprised.