Italian Elections and Politics - 2023: Post-Berlusconism

[Mike88]

The changes on the electoral system, proposed by Meloni, have to be approved by a referendum and the first indications show a very divided picture:

Euromedia poll:

45% Yes
43% No
12% Undecided

You Trend poll:

42% No
41% Yes
17% Undecided

Is Meloni following the steps of Renzi?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The changes on the electoral system, proposed by Meloni, have to be approved by a referendum and the first indications show a very divided picture:

Euromedia poll:

45% Yes
43% No
12% Undecided

You Trend poll:

42% No
41% Yes
17% Undecided

Is Meloni following the steps of Renzi?

If it's that close already, it will probably end up going down in flames, yeah. The constitutional reform process is glacially slow by design, and I can't see the trend going anywhere but down over the next couple years.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Has any Italian government in the second republic ever not altered/tried to alter the electoral system?

[Battista Minola 1616]

Has any Italian government in the second republic ever not altered/tried to alter the electoral system?

I mean, most of them in fact (our governments change frequently). Really it was just Berlusconi's second stint - his first stint also completely changed regional elections, but that's better seen as one with the package of 1992/1993 reforms that brought about the "second republic" - then Renzi and then arguably Conte and the M5S, although I'm not sure I would call the last one an electoral reform since the election method was unchanged. And now Meloni is trying to.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Anyway some service announcements:

- As Antonio said the constitutional reform process is slow by design and when it comes to something this big and controversial it inevitably goes even slower. The Renzi-Boschi reform was first published in April 2014, definitively approved by Parliament in April 2016 and rejected by referendum in December 2016.
- As a consequence I would urge the forum (and the government for that matter LOL) not to focus all its attention on this now, especially while a budget is being voted on.
- Constitutional reforms do not actually need to be approved by referendum as a rule, which is why we've had four such votes and not thirty-something. A referendum can be avoided if the reform passes with 2/3 of the vote of each chamber twice, or if that does not happen but not enough people call for one. It just so happens that there's below zero chance Meloni's proposal will clear either hurdle for obvious reasons.
- A reminder that Berlusconi tried to turn Italy into a sort of federal sort of semi-presidential state, which got destroyed 39-61 in a referendum in 2006, and I'm pretty sure this wouldn't even crack the top ten things about Silvio they remember best for most people. So failed reforms are only as big a part of your legacy as you let them be, I suppose.
- I may post provincial maps of previous referendums in the coming days, in particular 2001 and 2006 whose results I've long wanted to dive into but so far never have.

[Battista Minola 1616]

2001 constitutional referendum. A law modifying Title V of the second part of the Constitution, largely with the aim of increasing regional powers, was approved 64-36.

Turnout was very low (only one third of the electorate). Among those who voted there was a safe majority in support of the reform almost everywhere, although with a very visible correlation between stronger Yes results and vote for the DS and other centre-left parties, both of which make sense given that the reform was passed under a centre-left government but was the result of negotiations with the centre-right camp. In addition, it received very overwhelming support from South Tyrol Germans - the province of Bolzano had one of the highest turnouts in addition to the best score for Yes. On the other hand, it was met tepidly in the Aosta Valley which was the only region and province won by No, but I have no idea why.

[Battista Minola 1616]

2006 constitutional referendum. A law modifying various parts of the Constitution to significantly increase the powers of the President of the Council, devolve further powers to the regions (while backtracking on parts of the 2001 reform), overcome perfect bicameralism with a "federal" Senate and other more technical changes was rejected 39-61.

Like the previous one, this referendum was held just a few months after a general election that resulted in defeat for the government under which the reform was passed. This one however proved much more polarizing and controversial and was handily rejected amidst higher turnout. Unsurprisingly it's the No vote that now correlates strongly with support for the centre-left, although on top of that it tracks with being Southern and hence with relative deprivation. Shout-out to South Tyrol Germans who also flipped en masse to No - I should note that the SVP was firmly allied with the national centre-left back then. In practice it only passed in the Lega Nord heartland and the map can indeed be seen as one that measures affinity with LN (although with a baseline of support everywhere which Bossi's party at the time lacked). With our current hindsight it is tempting to see in this cleavage an anticipation of the electorate of Di Maio's and Conte's Five Stars, and more specifically if you combined PD and M5S support at the last parliamentary election I think you'd get something that looks exactly like this or more precisely like its mirror image. The one thing that confuses me is the uniformly extremely low scores for Yes in Calabria, especially compared to the more varied and less lopsided Sicily, but Calabria also had a one-off centre-left landslide in the parliamentary election in 2006, which I assume is related.

[Battista Minola 1616]

The government has been organizing roundtables with the trade unions over the 2024 budget and, relatedly, we are very much in strike season. Just today I am bearing the effects of a rail transport strike with strong participation, although this specific one has nothing to do with the budget and is in response to a deadly accident in Calabria where a train crashed against a truck that somehow got blocked on the tracks, something that could have been avoided if the Jonian rail line was not crappy and full of level crossings.

The other major news topic is that the latest femicide case, this one with particularly baffling details as both the perpetrator and the victim, his ex girlfriend, were 22 (my age...) and the former clumsily tried to flee by driving as far north as he could and was caught by the German police, has triggered a severe backlash. Violence against women is a topic that gets a large amount of media and political attention in Italy in general - even though I looked up the statistics and it's if anything less bad than the European average - but this time the scale of the response has been unprecedented. A new law against femicide that passed with no votes against (which expands the 2019 "red code" law, also a multipartisan effort) will come into force next week. Lots of talk about sentimental education and consent education in schools as well.

[🇺🇦 Purple 🦄 Unicorn 🇮🇱]

For Südtirol, I believe that Kompatscher will try to create a SVP-FdI-F-Lega government.

The SVP has now decided what to do:

They will invite FdI (Meloni's Fratelli), Lega, La Civica and the Freedom Party (F) to coalition talks.

Before this decision, there were debates about whether the SVP should opt for a right-wing coalition or a left-wing coalition. The vote was 41-17 in favour of the right-wing coalition.

Then, the SVP leadership voted if the second German-speaking coalition partner should be the centrist-liberal Team K, or the more populist-separatist-anti immigration Freedom Party. This vote went 42-17 in favour of the Freedom Party (also, because Team K has repeatedly said it won't govern with the Fratelli, because they are too right-fascist).

Not sure why they invited La Civica as well ... they would also have a 18-17 majority in the Landtag without them. Maybe to get an overhang/majority of 2 seats, in case a vote is held and members are sick or absent. And because it would ensure greater Italian-speaking representation.

There is still a debate about whether to increase the size of the Südtirol cabinet to 11 from the current 8, because of 5 government parties (the most parties ever, if talks succeed).

In this case, Kompatscher would likely agree to have 2 Italian-speaking cabinet members, 1 Ladin-speaker (from the SVP) and 8 German-speakers. This would represent the linguistic composition very well and represent the election results.

The Südtiroler Freiheit (a xenophobic, separatist party different from the Freedom Party) has strongly criticized the SVP for considering an expansion of the cabinet from 8 to 11 (waste of money) and for allowing Italian-speakers to receive a 2nd cabinet post. The STF was one of the big winners of the election and will be the most vocal opposition party.

https://www.stol.it/artikel/politik/koalition-svp-will-mit-freiheitlichen-lega-fratelli-und-la-civica-verhandeln

[Zinneke]

How are Schlein's prospects looking going into the EU elections, Battista? If she underperforms will there be a change of leadership?

[Battista Minola 1616]

How are Schlein's prospects looking going into the EU elections, Battista? If she underperforms will there be a change of leadership?

I don't think I have anything different to say from half a year ago, although the fact that the polls have hardly moved at all since will be cause for reflection. I am inclined to agree with your question but I am not quite sure what counts as "underperforming".

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, the EU elections were the high water marks for Renzi and Salvini too. And we all know what happened next...

[Battista Minola 1616]

Strike season is still ongoing (now it's the time of the tourism sector, of course at a crucial point given the incoming holidays), while a FdI Senator proposed a bill to forbid prohibitions [sic] on Nativity scenes and similar celebrations in schools in response to various "War On Christmas" stories from misguided teachers or school principals. Just normal things in this country.

[CumbrianLefty]

"War on Christmas" is a perennial for the populist right in most Western countries now.

Even though in the vast majority of cases it actually amounts to b***er all.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday Parliament passed the 2024 budget. The big deal is of course another reduction in the number of income tax brackets, with income from 15k to 28k euros now being taxed at 23% - same as rate as everything below 15k - instead of 25%, which is accompanied by a cut in the employee's side of the payroll tax. Pension reform essentially amounts to anagraphic requirements slowly creeping upwards and cuts for those who intend to retire in advance. A barrage of new benefits for workers with children, especially mothers (this being Meloni's greatest hobbyhorse of course). Significant funds are being allocated for public employee contract renewals but the government has shockingly announced that priority will be given to security and police forces.

Polls are still hardly moving at all, except for an extremely slow erosion of PD support in favour of the M5S. I don't expect this to change until just before (or just after!) the next European Parliament election in June.

[Battista Minola 1616]

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".

Update: since 2022 he is again Undersecretary of Cultural Heritage under Meloni. And now he is under investigation for theft for a 17th century painting that disappeared in 2013 and then reappeared at an exhibit in Lucca in 2021 as Sgarbi property. Just as I thought he couldn't become even more of a character than he already was.

Also, he is not a Deputy or mayor of Sutri anymore but last year he was elected mayor of a different small town in Lazio (Arpino, best known as the hometown of Gaius Marius and Cicero).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fantastic content, simply incredible.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday Parliament passed the 2024 budget. The big deal is of course another reduction in the number of income tax brackets, with income from 15k to 28k euros now being taxed at 23% - same as rate as everything below 15k - instead of 25%, which is accompanied by a cut in the employee's side of the payroll tax. Pension reform essentially amounts to anagraphic requirements slowly creeping upwards and cuts for those who intend to retire in advance. A barrage of new benefits for workers with children, especially mothers (this being Meloni's greatest hobbyhorse of course). Significant funds are being allocated for public employee contract renewals but the government has shockingly announced that priority will be given to security and police forces.

Polls are still hardly moving at all, except for an extremely slow erosion of PD support in favour of the M5S. I don't expect this to change until just before (or just after!) the next European Parliament election in June.

Something I was thinking about a couple days ago and forgot to mention when I talked about tax reforms in the budget: the cedolare secca (alternate tax regime for rental income) on short rents was raised from 21% to 26%, at least on properties beyond the first when multiple ones are being rented. In other words, Meloni raised taxes on Airbnb multi-owners.

[🇺🇦 Purple 🦄 Unicorn 🇮🇱]

In Südtirol (Alto-Adige, or South Tyrol in English), Arno Kompatscher has been elected Governor for a third 5-year term today - 3 months after the election.

He leads a SVP-Freedom Party-Fratelli d'Italia-Lega-LaCivica coalition of 5 parties.

Media calls it a "rightwing" government.

All 19 provincial parliament members from the 5-party coalition voted for him, all 16 from the opposition against him.

The other 10 government members will be elected by the parliament on 31 January.

Of the 11 government members, 8 are German-speaking, 2 Italian-speaking and 1 Ladin-speaker. This roughly represents the linguistic composition of Südtirol and the election results.

The 2 Italian-speaking government members are from Fratelli d'Italia and the Lega.

LaCivica, a small Italian-speaking party, will not get a government member, but they received the important post of speaker of parliament.

[Battista Minola 1616]

It's that time of the year again (and more importantly, it's that year again) - regional elections are back.

The first is Sardinia, which will vote this weekend on 25 February. The incumbent Christian Solinas would be eligible again after just one mandate, but has been dumped by the right in favour of the mayor of Cagliari Paolo Truzzu - a win for Fratelli d'Italia and a loss for Lega and the autonomist Sardinian Action Party which has been acting as a Lega subsidiary for a few years now. Truzzu's main opponent is M5S's Alessandra Todde, a former undersecretary in the Conte II government, supported by the M5S, the Democratic Party, the Green Left Alliance and various microparties I will not bother with. Forces on the centre-left opposed to the alliance with the Five Stars have coalesced behind Renato Soru, former President of Sardinia between 2004 and 2009, founder of telecom company Tiscali and at various points in the past both inside and outside the PD. The coalition supporting Soru is worth mentioning just for the sheer absurdity, apparently combining Azione/+Europa, a Sardinian independentist list and (!!!) Communist Refoundation. There's also a fourth candidate, Lucia Chessa, leader of a very small regional party.

I can only find one poll, which has Soru on a surprisingly high 11% and Truzzu with a small lead over Todde. Previous experience suggests the most likely outcome is Truzzu winning by a not small margin and the centre-left shooting itself in the foot once again. Stay tuned for the next episode (Abruzzo).

[MRCVzla]

Sardinian regional elections were held on Sunday, no exit polls will be released, and the proper count will start at 7:00 CET of Monday. Turnout: 52.3% (-1.4% respect to 2019, even respect to 2014).

Meanwhile, Tajani is officially now the leader of Forza Italia, after being elected as Secretary(*) -and the single candidate who contested- on the party Congress hold also this weekend.

(*)Secretary, because well, the late Silvio will still be symbolically "Eternal President" of FI.

[Flyersfan232]

Sardinian regional elections were held on Sunday, no exit polls will be released, and the proper count will start at 7:00 CET of Monday. Turnout: 52.3% (-1.4% respect to 2019, even respect to 2014).

Meanwhile, Tajani is officially now the leader of Forza Italia, after being elected as Secretary(*) -and the single candidate who contested- on the party Congress hold also this weekend.

(*)Secretary, because well, the late Silvio will still be symbolically "Eternal President" of FI.

think tajani is ok with that he a monarchist

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1762087960097247300?t=zWRMXXVwj0FNR3SqFI...

This is an interesting little provision, and even more interesting that it's a possibility.  The 2% counted shows a tight race.

[MRCVzla]

90% counted and the race is very close, Todde ahead by 0.1% (1100 votes), some portals have already projected her victory, an historic one as would be M5S' first elected regional president ever and the first Region the center-left has flipped from the right since 2015. Conte and Schlein are traveling to Sardinia on the same plane right now and Salvini cancelled some public interventions.

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1762230401739718739

[Niemeyerite]

So Todde won in the end! Amazing, wasn't expecting that.