#decrypting #alchemy - #electoral #reform in #Italy so, the leaders of two of the three leading political parties (incidentally: we had the leaders of two largest opposition parties that cannot be elected- a novelty) tonight agreed to disagree to summarize: agree on a 40% of the vote threshold in order to get a bonus (i.e. additional seats, to ensure a majority), and on 100 districts disagreement on: a) if the premium is assigned to a coalition or a political party b) if the minimum threshold for votes is 3% or 4% minutiae? not really- simply, political self-interest the leading party, Mr. Renzis PD is assessed to be at or above 40%: hence, it is interested in having the premium assigned to a party (it can go solo) Mr. Berlusconis FI/PDL/etc. would need a coalition to get that, and a splinter of the PDL, called NCD (part of the Government), is assessed to be below 4% but above 3%- hence, if the threshold is set a 4%, NCD will have an incentive to form a coalition with Mr. Berlusconi (and maybe others), allowing him to hope to win the elections; but if the threshold is set at 3%, NCD could be tempted to go alone, maybe betting on the left flank of Mr. Renzis PD to split from the PD and join other smaller leftist parties (tonight some key members announced that they will not attend a meeting of the PD leaders), thereby depriving both Mr. Renzi and Mr. Berlusconi of that 40%, and re-assert the usefulness of NCD to form a government (whoever wins- as smaller groupings on the left and the right have less chances of being asked to form a coalition government from the opposite side of the political spectrum) Cinquestelle? Currently, no hope to get 40% all by itself (and for the time being none of the two other leading parties would form a coalition government with them, as each one of the three main parties is still focused on... dismantling the other two) so, if the PD splits, while the threshold to enter the Italian Parliament is kept low enough to ensure the survival of leftist parties (SEL and few others in a joint block), an extreme-right grouping, and NCD (absorbing maybe part of other moderates), it could well be that no coalition or party would be able to get that 40%, and three smaller groupings plus one of the two other political parties would be needed to form a government having more than half of the seats within the Parliament (albeit in Italy we already had in the past governments with a plurality but not a majority of votes, i.e. what we call maggioranza relativa) the elections are nominally due in 2018- but stay tuned for political opportunities to arise to pull the plug (or have others force a pull-plugging) as early as next Spring (as tonight it was announced that the plan is to have an electoral reform voted by December 2014, and Constitutional reforms by January 2015, including required institutional changes e.g. to the Upper Chamber called Senato) all of this compounded with recent rumors that President Napolitano will leave early his second mandate, rumors expended this week into something interestingly synchronized with tonights schedule (i.e. early next year- in time to have a new electoral law and constitutional reforms in place) PS if the elections were to return three political parties between 20 and 30% each, plus three political parties (extreme-right, extreme-left, moderates) with between 3 and 5% each, there could be surprises... as while the PD is occupying the centre and expanding from the left while leaving behind a slice of its original supporters, the only political party covering all the spectrum that could create a coalition around a none of the above platform is Cinquestelle, and there are more chances that it would be able to be joined by the extreme-left and extreme-right in a government for change than by any of the other two main parties or the moderates... resurrecting a coalition similar to the one that we had in the 1920s (do not forget that some of those from the 1920s-1940s after WWII left the fascist party and resurrected politically on the left, not on the right)
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:04:26 +0000
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