Update [2005-4-5 9:17:39 by gilgamesh]: thanks to The Maven for offering some clarification on the regional electoral system.
[promoted by BooMan]
First of all, I need to clarify some misconceptions and misunderstandings about the Italian system of government that I’ve seen expressed authoritatively, but erroneously, on dkos and that, I suspect, are shared by many Americans ignorant of the Italian system.
1) The Italian electoral system is no longer, as it once was, based entirely on proportional representation. The Italians abandoned PR, at the national level, in 1992 after the Tangentopoli (Bribegate) scandals in favor of majoritarianism (actually pluralism just like in the US) for the following reasons:
a) Notwithstanding the existence of PR, a single party (the Christian Democrats) managed to completely dominate almost every aspect of society during the entire period running from 1948 to 1984. The governing coalitions were also extremely unstable. There was, on average, about one government every six months.
b) In the Italian case, it was almost always the same officials being recycled over and over again (e.g. Guilio Andreotti was elected Prime Minister something like 8 or 9 times. I don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head. He was eventually indicted for mob ties and corruption, but they couldn’t do a damned thing because, by the time his case come to trial, he had already been appointed a Senator-for-life because of his “long and devoted service to the nation.”) and not just the same parties.
c) Most importantly, the main reason the Italians abandoned PR was not the instability
of governments, but the extraordinary amount of corruption (the legendary “Tangentopoli” or “Bribegate” in English which I mentioned earlier) that had resulted from 40 years of what they call “partitocrazia”. In order to maintain their hold on power in a system of PR, the Christian Democrats had to negotiate (read: bribe and corrupt) the members of other parties (Social Democrats,usually) and viceversa into remaining a part of the coalition. The parties divided up among themselves the control of key industries and even the television stations. In order to get a job in, say, education, you had to first grease the palms of an important party boss or get a recommendation (usually mafia) from someone already in it.
The whole thing collapsed with Tangentopoli, the arrest of almost the entire political and corporate elite of the time and the semi-revolution which partially abolished PR and instituted a mixed system of majoritarianism and PR. The new hybrid system is four/fifths proportional and 1/5 majoritarian at the national level and 4/5 majoritarian and 1/5 proprotional at the regional level.
2) Regions in Italy do not have the same degree of autonomy as do states under the US federalist system. In fact, the issue of federalism and “devolution” of powers to the regions was one of the primary controversies of the just-completed elections. Berlusconi, with a strong push from the secessionist Northern League party in his coalition , are trying to pass a fundamental reform of the Constitution which would give the regions greater autonomy with respect to public health, scholastic organization, administration and an independent police force. The center-left opposes this because it would lead toward an even greater disparity and divergence of the wealthy, industrialized northern regions from the poor and agriculture-based south.
Now, as to the recent elections, Italy is divided into 20 regions as defined by the constitution (Piemonte, Valle d’Aosta, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Emiglia Romagna,
Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio, Abruzzi, Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicilia and Sardegna). This is very important to consider when trying to understand the significance of the overwhelming defeat that the center-right coalition government has been dealt as of yesterday.
But first of all, what are the center-right and center-left coalitions? In Italy, after the reforms of 1991-1996 which introduced a majoritarian (first-past-the-post) electoral system, it became necessary for the various
(innumerable) small parties to ally themselves into two grand blocs so that they could obtain a majority of votes and maintain a stable majority government. However, because about 20% of legislative seats remained proportional, the existence of small parties was not eliminated. This current hybrid system is alled “bipolarism” (i.e. center-left and center-right) and it was expected to be a universal panacea to all of Italy’s ills when the sytem was originally introduced. Of course, it hasn’t exactly turned out that way.
The primary parties within the two blocks break down as follows:
Center-Right or CDL (House of Liberty)
Forza Italia (headed by Silvio Berlusconi). Its political program or platform can basically be defined as US Republican light. It supports lower taxes on the wealthy as a way to stimulate economic growth and increased cooperation and involvement of the Catholic Church in matters of personal and public morals. E.g., the recently passed laws which harshly limit artifical insemination and stem-cell research.
Alleanza Nazionale (headed by Gianfranco Fini). This party is a direct descendent of the MSI (Mussolini’s fascist party). Until recently, it explicity espoused a neo-fascist agenda. It’s main focus these days is on harsh anti-immigration laws and tough-on-crime legislation modeled on that of Mussolini.
Lega Nord or Northern League (headed by Umberto Bossi). It started out its existence as a secessionist movement with strong antipathies and resentment toward the south because of its alleged dependence on the taxes of wealthy northerners. It is now a legitimate political party trying to achieve the same fundamental objecive of division through the mecchanisms of the political process.
UDC (Union of Christian Democrats). These are ex-Christian Democrats with right-wing tendencies.
Center-Left or l’Unione
Margherita (currently led by Francesco Rutelli). This is a very important and powerful party of ex-Christian Democrats with left-leaning tendencies.
DS (Democrats of the Left). This is the majority party in the center-left coalition. Some freeper or ex-Cia operative tried to defame this party yesterday on dkos by referring to it as an “ex-Stalinist” party. In reality, it is the former PCI (Italian Communist Party) which had been independent of Moscow and democratically-oriented since the 1950’s. In recent years, indeed, it has been divided into two main currents:
a) the reformist current (led by Massimo D’Alema, the ex-Premier) which is market-oriented and wishes to achieve welfare reform on a large scale. It generally seeks cooperation between the two coalitions and is very pragmatist in outlook. It can reasonably be compared to the DLC and the moderate part of the Democratic party.
b) the “piazzisti”. This is the more leftist wing which is much more intransigent and ideological on most issues.
Rifondazione Communista (headed by Fausto Bertinotti). Bertinotti <u> claims </u> to still believe in the total public control of private property and other market activities. But, in practice, the individual members of his party tend to be ferociously anti-war and anti-Berlusconi and have not offered much in the way of a positive vision with regard to the direction of the country.
UDEUR: another group of ex-Christian Democrats. They are more moderate than the Margherita and have often threatened to switch sides. It is difficult to tell where they will fall on any particular issue. But they will always abide by the interests of the Vatican.
As I said before, to understand the results of the recent elections, you have to realize that Italy is divided into only 20 regions which will now be headed by Presidents (governors) who are members of the center-left coalition. That is to say, 80% of the country will be in the hands of l’Unione. The equivalent situation in the US would be the Democratic Party suddenly winning control of forty governorships after a single election. Considering, also, that Berlusconi himself campaigned heavily in all regions for the Polo (as did Romano Prodi for l’Unione), that is a devastating, if not exactly catastropic and irrecuperable, defeat for the CdL.
And here’s some other interesting data which I’ve been able to gather from various sources. According to the DS’s exit polls, on a national level the center-left has taken 52.3% of the overall vote against a miserable 44.1% for the Cdl. Just before the election, Berlusconi had repeatedly insisted that the national-level data would tell the true story about how the public views the two sides and that the Cdl was absolutly certain to win the popular vote by a substantial margin. Well, the voters have spoken and the outlook is bleak indeed for next year’s presidentials if this years regionals are any indication . Berlusconi, of course, knows they are, but won’t do the responsible thing and resign because that would mean the effective collapse of the entire center-right coalition and probably the death of Forza Italia as a significant political entity.
Turnout was not excepionally high by Italian (or European) standards but, as usual, it puts the US to shame. 71.4% of eligible voters cast their votes which was a dropoff of 1.6% from the 2000 regional elections. And all this in the middle of nine days of mourning for the death of the Bishop of Rome!! Striking indeed.
Romani Prodi put it this way, according to l’Unità:
And, according to Piero Fassino (DS):
The reation on the right? Francesco Storace, who before the vote made this onimous prediction, “If we (the center-right) lose Lazio, Prodi will be the next Premier”, described the defeat as “a hecatomb for us in all of Italy.”
Here’s a breakdown of the results in the most important regions (i.e. the regions that were undecided before the election):
Lazio:
Marazzo (center-left) 51.2%
Storace (center-right) 46.9%
Piemonte:
Bresso (center-left) 50.5%
Ghigo (center-right) 47.5%
Puglia:
Vendola (center-left) 51.2%
Fitto: (center-right) 47.9%
The center-right has won only in Lombardy and Veneto. To give you some idea of what this means: losing one of those two would be comparable to George W. Bush losing Texas.
I’m predicting anticipated elections or a vote-of-no-confidence by the end of the year.
well…so much for that idea!!!
Good explanation. Thank you.
We are having a referendum in BC, Canada for
Single Transferable Vote. Right now we have the
“First Past the Post” or “Single Member Plurality.”
However, I don’t think it has been explained very
well by the Citizens’ Assembly that proposed it.
The Green Party 5 years ago got 20% of the popular
vote and not one seat in the Legislature. If the
new system gets in at least one representative from
the Greens it will be an improvement.
Electoral systems is a question that has befuddled even the some of the finest mathematical minds in the world.
All systems have some defects and liabilities. Majoritarian systems soemtimes leave people completely unrepresneted depite the fact theta they obatin enormously high precentages of the vote: Proportial systems can get wrecked on the shoals of the types of problems I referred to in the diary.
Good ready and help understanding what went on over there. Do you think that the British elections will have any impact on when a no confidence vote will happen?
no, I can’t imagine they would any effect. It’s a question of infighting and finger-pointing within the center-right coalition now. I was going to mention this in my diary but it was aleary rather long (I trued to do a weird hybrid between educational and editorial) and somewhat meandering. Some leaders of Lega Nord are alreay trying to pin the reponsibility for this disaster directly on Berlu. They mainatin that it’s Forza Italia that the people have rejected and that the Laegue is still growing and other comments to that effect. Now,it was the League which brought down th frist… Read more »
Here’s a link to a red-state/blue state map of the results. The reds are the good guys in this case, though…
I’ll need time to digest, but you’ve already told me a lot I didn’t know! Thanks
Don’t mention it!!! Thank you for the compliment.
Thank you so much for the information! Very helpful as well as very interesting.
more than welcome…
Thank you I just learned a lot. I was not aware of the change to the majority system.
To you think Prodi would make a good President?
Prodi has been President of the Councel (the official name for the highest elected office in Italy, BTW) before. He’s far from perfect. He tends to be little bit wishy washy. But he’d be a substantial improvement on Berlusconi. He wouldn’t be Bush’s lapdog on forein policy
and he wouldn’t spend 80% of his administration’s time and energy on trying to get himself and his mob-connected allies of the legal hook by passing ad personam legislation.
I only remember Prodi from his EU job, but wouldn’t be his EU experience an advantage? I know unfortunately there are no perfect politicians, but my impression of Prodi is also that he would be much better than Berlusconi and I guess as you say that he wouldn’t end up another ‘poodle’ sure sounds almost fantastic.
Amazing how under current circumstances we are downgrading our expectations and are happy with less. I don’t know if this is to be considered good or not.
my trash can would be an improvement over Berlusconi so would Prodi for sure.
But Prodi made my sh*t list when 3 days into the war, after being silent when bombs started falling on Baghdad, came on CNN to express his sorrow that American prisoners were shown on IraqTV and that was in his opinion a breach of the War conventions.
That was the only(?) evil he saw.
This is just the kind of thing that disturbs many people about Prodi, including myself. He’s certainly changed in style (we won’t know about substance unless he were actually elected) lately though. He’s been much more agressive and outspoken in his condemnation of Berlsuconi’s “costituzione della patria perduta” (constitution of the lost nation) and he’s been challenging him in many other areas with agrresive verbal sallies.
But who knows if it’s just posturing or what?
I don’t have a tv and no CNN, so that bypassed me. Would have made my S-list too. Hope what Gilgamesh observed is a ‘transformation’?!
Politicians tend to do that! Transformers!
And I do agree with gilgamesh. We have few choices and we must accept what’s better in comparison.
Good analysis.
I don’t see any mention of who represents the most powerful Unions.
Historically it must have been the base for the Communist party (as is the case in many European countries) but, I sense that things must have changed. Am I wrong to assume that?
Who is behind those massive strikes and demonstrations on Labor or Social issues?
the most powerful unions in Italy are the CGIL, CSL and UIL (Unione Internationale dei Lavoaratori). I think that they are divided up, as to party, between what I reffered to as the “i piazzisti” or “i girotondisti” wing
of the DS and Rifondazione. However, they are very powerful and influential on their own. They tend to organize general strikes and anti-war manifestations on their own, for example. All the left leaning parties have to, at leadt, attempt to reach out to them.
Well, reality is: CGIL has always been the most leftist organization, pretty much your classic union. Its relationship with the communist/social-democratic parties has always been very strong, to the effect that many political leaders (the best ones, IMHO) still come from there. Nowadays this union is still clearly leftist, and it’s probably the only one that can count on a strong and loyal following. UIL, from what I remember, was founded by Christian-Democrats and other catholic activists after Vatican Council II. After the 80’s, it basically became a tool in the hands of DC policies, and generally speaking it’s always… Read more »
Toyg. Thanks for providing some historical context
on the unions.
Clear in-depth analysis and information coupled with a liberal vision. Well done Gilgamesh.
For the very first time I have an understanding of what your elections are about beneath the headlines. This is what being a proper European is all about. isn’t it?
We’ll all get there in the end with an understanding of each other and of our countries. Even we Brits will get there in the end.
Britain has an enormous amount to offer to the rest of Europe: its long and invaluable accumulation of legal wisdom as embodied in the common law tradition; its iportance as a geopoltical countweight to the French-Greman axis (not bashing the Frech and Germans) which sometimes theatens to dominate smaller countries in economic, fiscal and trade matters. To mention just a couple of things off the top of my head.
It will be a great day when the Brits finally decide to enter, once and for all, as fully-fledged members of a
unified Europe.
I know that under the reforms passed just over a decade ago, proportional representation was largely set aside in favor of single-member districts for parliamentary elections, but are you sure that this is also the case at the regional level? While my Italian is rather rusty, the explanation of the voting system provided on the La Repubblica website seems to indicate that four-fifths of the seats (at least for most regions) are still allocated proportionally. The remaining fifth then seems to go entirely to the party winning a majority/plurality in the region. Il consiglio regionale è eletto con un sistema… Read more »
and I’m far from an expert on this stuff as yet. I’m an American citizen who’s been living over here for only four years and the first three I spent ignoring Italian politics comletely.
That’s why I was HOPING for some input from others, actually, who knew things that I haven’t yet learned about Italian politics.
Your interpteation is spot on, BTW. Yes, it reads four-fifths proporioanal and one-fifth majoritarian. Which is, interestingly, just about the opposite of the parliamentary mix. That’s helpful. Thank you….
So, it’s majority majoritarian at the national level and majority proportianal at the regional.
your talking about the Consiglio Regionale. Yesterday’s election was wrt the President’s of the region and that’s majoritarian, unlike in the past. That’s where the confusion arose. Ypuw point is not actually relevant as far as this election is concerned,but still informative.
I certainly trust your greater local expertise (having myself only spent about 12 weeks in Italy in 1996-97), but I’m just relying on the information from the La Repubblica website. The results pages for Lazio or The Marches, for example, appear to show a distribution of regional council seats based on yesterday’s vote. Other regions seem much the same. See also these stories on yesterday’s elections by the BBC, NYT/IHT and Bloomberg, which all imply that the regional governments, not just the presidencies, were at stake. Not that I was ever clear on regional Italian politics, but now I’m getting… Read more »
your right. I was hoping to avoid a discussion of this byzantine nonsense but here goes: Coalitions, Parties and Lists The coalitions are formal agglomerates of parties based on generally shared fundmantal ideas and principles. The center-left, for example, contains parties which run the gamut from the ex-Christian Democratics of La Margerhita and l’Udeur all the way over to Cossiga’s Communist Party (not to be confused with Refondazione Communista…these are dyed-in-the-wool unreconstructed Communists on the model of Castro’s party, say.) But they all share a left-leaning agenda of support for labor rights, maintainin (relatively intact) the social welfare… Read more »
For local elections, the council seats are distributed on a proportional basis BUT there is a “majority premium” that goes to the lists supporting the elected Mayor/President. So, 4/5 of the seats are distributed proportionally; the fifth part is divided amongst the best-placed members of the lists supporting the elected Mayor/President. Also, just to add a bit of trivia, Mayors cannot be continuously elected more than twice (and when I say “elected”, I mean it literally; if a mayor resigns, he’s promptly replaced by a party-nominated fellow until the natural election date comes — it might take years, unless the… Read more »
Berlusconi won’t resign, and his coalition partners would be incredibly stupid to vote him out because: there isn’t any other viable candidate for the position on the right. As it is, Forza Italia is mainly composed by Silvio’s associates and managers of his companies, so it cannot really produce an alternative. The other parties sport mediocre leaders, the best one being that post-fascist Gianfranco Fini who cannot really hope to become nothing more than what he’s now (Foreign Affairs minister). almost no one in the centre-right coalition can afford to lose power, because it’s the main “reason d’etre” for the… Read more »
profoundly anti-Berlusconi. Forza Italia and the rest of the right have their base almost entirely in the north, with the notable exception of Sicily. More importantly , after the recent and continuin attempts to reverse the extraordiamily difficult and bloody process of unifizazone Risorgimental and transnform the country into a a confederacy on the model of the US per-Civil-War, ANY southerner would have to be insane as well as profoundly stupid to continue supporting Berlusconi and the right. It doesn’t matter what Berlusconi SAYS, from now on the League has to satisfied with respect to the implementaion of its entire… Read more »
Gilgamesh, believe me 😉 in the south, if “someone” pulls out the vote, there isn’t much left to talk about. As of today, there’s a big war going on between criminal families in Campania (tens of victims in a few weeks already), and this has probably taken “someone’s attention” away. Let’s look at recent history. In the eighties, PSI was a big suprise, no one thought they could get more than 5% in the south, and then bang, double digits everywhere… a few years later the truth came out, thanks to a number of brave (and often right-wing, but honest)… Read more »
You don’t need to tell me about the mafia. I live in Campania and study in Napoli, for heaven’s sake. I know who really controls the country. At the same time, Bassolini was a sure call for the Presidency of Campania and, now, the whole south is beginning to lean toward the left (much more so than the north in any case). My only point is that the north is solidy Lega and Alleanza territory. If the left can’t dominate the south,notwihstanding the mob or with their help if necessary,what hope is there for the center-left? Winning Lombadry, Veneto and… Read more »
thanks gilgamesh, that was tasty. did you see the debates with d’alema, rutelli, berlusconi and one other rightwinger on rai last night? berli had to resort to braggodocio to keep his dignity. there was a surprising amount of collegial humour, as well as the obligatory yelling matches that no other country would put up with! surely coincidence that a girl with a low neckline was just behind b., visible every time the camera was on him. rutelli showed well, a lion coming into his prime with strong presence, mental command, and ability to play the crowd. the public applause was… Read more »
Melo, you didn’t notice the main fact: it’s the first time since Berlusconi went into politics (more than ten years) that he accepted a public debate against an opposition leader. Usually he doesn’t even accept not-scripted events with (pseudo)journalists. Now everybody knows why: he’s just useless in public debate; his roots are in corporate presentations, not (like Rutelli and D’Alema) in political fights. After ten years, he still doesn’t know squat about real politics, he’s just the frontman for that sum of Big Interests once supporting his good friend Bettino Craxi. He’s nothing more than a GWB that can actually… Read more »
basically, I agree with you both in your fundamental assesment: the trio absolutely wiped the floor with him. In fact, that debate was arguably more damaging than the elections. Certainly it was a devastating hammer-blow which helped to continue the process of tearing doen the mediatic personality-cult that il Cavaliere has so carefully constructed and nurtured for the last fifteen years ot so, the way the Iraqi’s tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Bagdahdad. It was so shocking and embarrasing for the right, in fact,that Cassini (il Presidente della Camera) really just nailed him when they held… Read more »
Silvio admitted that elections could take place in october…