ROME LETTER: For the foreign resident the Euro elections are a chance to sample life on the Italian hustings
FOR THE resident foreigner in Italy, the European elections represent a glorious moment of electoral enfranchisement, a chance to express our vote at national level. Residents, you see, may vote in European and local Italian elections but not in a general election (in which only Italian citizens may vote).
Thus it was that the Baroness and self set off last Sunday morning to the Commune, full of earnest enthusiasm and intent on our democratic duty. Immediately, however, we came across a problem entirely of our own doing. Having voted in local elections three years ago, we thought we were well and truly on the electoral register. Not so.
In order to get your Euro voting card, an application should have been made by the end of March. We had not been quite so far-sighted. However, the Commune di Trevignano was ready for the problem and had organised a sort of last-minute registration system. We filled in the forms and Serena in the town hall told us she would call us when the election office in nearby Bracciano had given us the okay.
At about half-past eight, with the polling station due to close at 10, Serena’s call came through. So off we set again to the town hall to pick up our electoral certificates. As we trooped out of the Commune, remarking on how efficient they had been in dealing with our late applications, we walked straight into “election fever”, Trevignano-style.
We were accosted by a man who clearly recalled the Baroness from her memorable foray into local politics three years ago. (On that occasion, she ran on a far-left, civic list). “Are there still communists around? All communists should die . . . death to communists,” he shouted at us, not without a certain passion.
Life on the hustings in Italy is rarely boring. The same gentleman turned up at the polling station. For a moment your correspondent became anxious that he might want to pursue this dialectic. Perhaps, however, he caught a glint of the determination in the Baroness’s eye. He eventually decided discretion would be the better part of electoral valour, and said no more.
When he woke up on Monday morning, our outspoken friend must have been pretty pleased. The main opposition, centre-left Democratic Party (PD) had dropped from 33.2 per cent at the general election last year to 26.1 per cent, while the two major far-left lists both failed to make the 4 per cent quorum and thus failed to win a seat. The “communists” might not have died but they certainly ain’t in good health.
So, then, were these elections an unmitigated triumph for Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose Freedom Party (PDL) yet again emerged as the strongest in the land with 35.3 per cent of the vote? Well, not quite. Berlusconi actually saw his vote drop from the 37.4 per cent of last year, belying his own predictions that he would return a 40-45 per cent national vote.
Clearly the major beneficiaries of this twin loss, by both PDL and PD, were the federalist Northern League (from 8.3 per cent to 10.2 per cent), the “liberal” opposition party, Italy of Values (4.4 per cent to 8 per cent) and the ex-Christian Democrat UDC (5.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent). All three smaller parties picked up on a “protest” vote aimed at the two biggest parties.
The last two years have witnessed some outstanding incompetence from the Italian left, much given to internecine warfare, ideological pomposity and an almost total failure to govern when in office. In such circumstances, the decline of the PDs came as no surprise. Indeed, many on the centre-left had anticipated a much worse result than 26.1 per cent.
However, in a European context where the right and centre-right made gains just about everywhere, Berlusconi lost votes. His critics would like to believe this could represent the thin end of the wedge, the beginning of a loss of popularity. They argue the caso Noemi (the Neapolitan girl, Noemi Letizia, whose 18th birthday party he attended last month) and all that followed, including reports of parties at his Sardinian villa and his wife’s decision to divorce him, have all done Berlusconi serious damage. Frankly, that remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the elections have led to one definitive development. Two days after the vote, Berlusconi announced his party would no longer be supporting this month’s electoral referendum. That referendum calls for changes to the electoral law that would probably favour the biggest parties, penalising others such as the Northern League and the IDV.
Originally, Berlusconi was in favour of the referendum, since it might be expected to strengthen his Freedom Party. Given the Northern League’s strong showing last weekend and his need for its support in both government and local elections in two weeks’ time, Berlusconi appears to have backtracked.
That referendum, too, contains a proposal to stop high-profile candidates standing in more than one constituency, using their big name to attract votes. In the end, that was never likely to appeal to the populist Berlusconi.
After all, he stood in all five Italian Euro-constituencies last weekend, winning the handsome haul of 2,706,791 votes, even if he clearly had no intention of relinquishing government house to take up an MEP seat.