Besides being busy with various translations and interpreting tasks, I’ve been busily watching the political situations both in the US and in Italy, avidly reading the newspapers and online news sites to get an idea of what is going on.
I’ve basically steered away from discussing political issues here, but sometimes you just have to give in and talk about them. But, I’ll stick to the situation here in Italy.
Politics in Italy has always included a bit of theater, but lately things have been over the top. For those who haven’t been following what’s been going on, I’ll give you the basic run down.
First, a little bit of (simplified)recent history. (Believe me, the whole situation is much more complicated than this, but I’ll give the basics.)
Italy voted in 2006. At the time, there were basically 2 large coalitions, the House of Liberty (right) and the Union (left). Italy has numerous small political parties which then became part of one of the large coalitions. A change in the election law in 2005 made these coalitions necessary, as the vote tally awards seats in parliament to the winning coalition.
The vote in 2006 was won by the Union by a small margin and the Prime Minister was then Romano Prodi. Again, because it was a small margin, the winning party really didn’t have much of a majority. Two weeks ago, Prodi was forced to resign after one of the parties in his coaltion withdrew their support. Why? Because the Party Leader’s wife was arrested under corruption charges and he himself was put under investigation. So, with the rationalization that his “allies” should have stopped the arrest and investigation, he withdrew his party’s support and Prodi was forced to request a vote of confidence from Parliament. Since he had a small majority to begin with, when that party withdrew, he no longer had a majority and he lost the “confidence” vote. Having lost that vote, he was then forced to resign.
But, remember how I said that Italian politics has always included a bit of theater? Well, let’s not forget that theater part. During the confidence vote, one of the members of the party that withdrew their support wanted to vote in favor of Prodi. He was consequently called a “piece of s*%&” by the other members of his party and spat upon, whereupon he started crying, then fainted, and was carried out on a stretcher.
But wait, things get better….. When the votes were tallied and the Speaker announced them to the floor, the opposing party popped open some spumanti and started eating mortadella (their nickname for Prodi since he’s from Bologna) at which point the Speaker shouted at them that it wasn’t a tavern. I have to admit, I was watching this and could not believe my eyes.
At this point, it was obvious that Prodi would have to resign. But, the President of the Republic, Napolitano, did not want to dissolve Parliament and go directly to vote with the current voting law which, obviously, leads to instability in the government. At that point, he appointed Marini to investigate the possibility of electoral reforms.
Of course, the opposing coalition, led by Berlusconi, wanted to have Parliament dissolved right away and set things in motion for elections. Why? Because he was sure he could win. In fact, he even said that if the call to vote wasn’t set, that he’d march into Rome with a million people. (Later he said that he was misunderstood and never actually stated that.)
His opposition, the newly formed Democratic Party, called for election reform, something that had actually been under discussion before the current crisis occurred. Different systems were being discussed and a referendum was set for May 18th. But, then came the current crisis and the referendum will most likely be delayed.
Marini met with all of the leaders of the various political parties, but, due to resistance to electoral reforms by those who wanted elections right away (Berlusconi and his coalition), he was forced to declare that the reforms would not be possible. Hence, Italy will vote on April 13 & 14. And the campaign begins…
You can read here about the two candidates for Prime Minister.
More on Berlusconi
It will be interesting to see what happens. Veltroni, the leader of the Democratic Party, has declared that his party will go to elections by itself, without a coalition. Some say he’s doomed to failure and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, part of the larger House of Liberty coalition, is bound to win. Of course, the current election law favors these coalitions, so they may be right. Then again, many Italians are aware of the need for change and want leaders that actually care about the needs of the country. Only time will tell. And the drama continues……
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