Category: europe

Ah, the latest Berlusconi proposal: a monster coalition à la Germany, Unione and Casa di Libertà governing the country together. Everything to stay in power…

The Berlusconi press conference earlier this evening: of course he does not accept a victory of Unione. He questions the results, he stresses the irresponsibility of Prodi’s claim to victory, and he embarks on a set of philosophical reflections of what is means to govern a country in with a 50/50 split in political tendencies… (an interesting timing for such reflections… or does he mean to imply that none of those reflections hold when there is a bit more of a difference…). One after the other commentators connected to the Casa di Libertà speak of the problems with the electoral system, also an interesting twist after it was Berlusconi who changed the electoral system some months ago, in a desperate attempt to make it work in his advantage. Meanwhile, the struggle for the definition of the situation continues….

… Prodi claimed, yesterday night around three, in front of cheering crowds who had remained mesmerized on the piazzas before the open air screens, following the announcement of results as they came in, results that seemed to be leading nowhere and especially not to a victory of Unione. Not sure if his is the right conclusion to these absurd elections, but in any case: it seems that in the end Unione got some more votes. Some. And it is very clear whose votes these are: those of Italians outside of Italy, who were able to vote for the very first time. So basically the country is almost 50/50 divided between pro- and anti-Berlusconi (as Giulia reminded me that we should perhaps stop pretending that this election is about the left against the right), and the Italian diaspora decided that Berlusconi should go. The irony of it all is that Berlusconi changed the electoral system some months ago, driven by a power-crazed fear that he might lose. The decision to grant suffrage to Italians outside of the country was based on the stereotypical image that the diaspora would vote more right-wing. And again, perhaps there are more right-wing sympathies in the diaspora – who knows? clearly ideas about political tendencies within a diaspora seem to rely more on prejudices than on knowledge… – but in any case from outside of Italy it seemed more clear to every one that Berlusconi should go (I mean, that message was also on the cover of The Economist, hardly a bastion of left-wing thought…). Commentators on television ascribe a certain “pragmatism” to the diaspora, while the idea that Italians abroad deciced on the fate of the Berlusconi regime doesn’t cease to create amazement and perplexity…

Prodi spoke of the necessity of unity. Let’s see now whether or not la Casa will accept the results (remembering also that Berlusconi had called for UN inspection during the elections a week ago, much to the surprise of UN officials…). Che absurdo, questi elezioni.

Shoot Nexus, the agency who did the exit polls. Or better, shoot Berlusconi, as my mum suggested earlier on the phone. And then what’s the perverse pleasure of these right wing people who vote for right wing parties and then tell the Nexus people that they voted for the left. Or maybe it’s Giulia who was right in being careful and not sharing the first excitement of possible transformation earlier this afternoon. The news this evening tells us that the Casa di Libertà got most of the votes, although the difference is so small that is looks more like a political impasse than anything else… we’ll only get a good idea of the extent of the damage tomorrow… Che tristezza. And in Milano it’s grey and it rains it rains it rains…

First news from the exit polls: Casa di Libertà has lost the elections to the centre-left, enchanted by the hope of the end of an era of Berlusconi… Friends are dancing and screaming (“Che tristezza”, Irene said yesterday, “the thought that i could be living under Berlusconi from my 23 till 33 years…”), and there are smiles of complicity when crossing certain people (how recognizable political orientations can be in bodies and gestures) in the streets.Political figures on T.V. spreak of prudence at this stage, these are only exit polls, but i feel we’ll be having a party tonight…

Travelling from Bologna to Milano in some hours, from the Centre of the country where Unione seems to have won votes all over the place, to the North with its provinces (Lombardia, Veneto) where de Casa di libertà still won votes despite their loss in general. Wondering if the feeling will be different up North, wondering about the even greater political gap between the richer and more (post)industrial north and the rest of the country (although the Casa also won in some regions of the South, in Puglia, where we’ll be going in some days, and Sicilia).