In one of the galleries of the Vatican, there are a series of stunning 17th century maps covering the whole world then known in Rome. They are an appropriate decoration for the Dicastery for Relations with States, Vaticanspeak for Foreign Office, MFA or State Department. But they obviously show some errors or lacunæ due to the then state of knowledge so in one of the rooms leading off the gallery a modern map was painted in the 1950s. The shapes of the continents are perfect and the names all in Latin (or Graeco-Latin). The capital of Bolivia becomes Paxia and of Chile Sancti Iacopoli. Even Canada’s Algonquin capital is Latinised to Octavia. But the most curious name for a place of diplomacy is the one found on the bottom left of the Atlantic Ocean “Insulæ falklandiæ”. I wonder if the next time I visit it will have become “malvinæ”.
Facetiousness apart, Cardinal Bergoglio did say that the Falklands/Malvinas had been “usurped” in a speech last year but the issue is hardly at the top of his papal priorities.
In the few days that he has been pope, he has confused many, endeared himself to most (believers and non-believers, clerical and anti-clerical) and probably frightened a few (in the Curia and maybe some comfy clerics).
So far, obviously, he has actually changed very little of substance but he has already made enormous changes in the form of the papacy. Starting with himself – he is the first non-European (since the 8th C), the first South American, the first Jesuit and first to call himself Francis. A part of the Church heirarchy changed just by electing him and he rose to the occasion, from what we have seen so far, just by being himself.
In his first homily, he refused the red stole embroidered in gold; he shocked everyone by going back to his hotel to pay the bill and went around without the papal escort. Seventy years ago it was the “vento del nord” the north wind of antifascist partisans that changed Roman politics, today the breeze from the other side of the Tiber is setting an example for politicians already struggling with Beppe Grillo’s tsunami. The new speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, went to the Quirinale yesterday for an official visit to President Napolitano; she walked and was without an escort. No doubt she would have done it anyway but she was certainly comforted by the Pope’s example. The concepts of “poverty” and “service” are part of the rhetoric on both sides of the river – if Jorge Mario Bergoglio can change his side, it will have an inevitable effect on the Italian side.
He wears the same worn black shoes that he wore as cardinal refusing the crimson papal slippers that were the satirists’ delight with Benedict XVI and he wears an iron crucifix rather than the golden papal one.
Some of his traits are reminiscent of Angelo Roncalli, John XXIII including his physical features (even if Roncalli was shorter and plumper). John XXIII once described Vatican rituals as worthy of a “Persian satrap”. Roncalli had an easy manner with everyone – his smile was disarming and so is Bergoglio’s. Francis presents himself as the simple and ingenuous priest when he is actually complicated, contradictory and it would seem, very much on the ball.
At Saturday’s meeting with the 5,000 journalist covering the conclave he was relaxed and outgoing, joking gently with them “you’ve worked a bit, haven’t you?” and then in stark contrast to his predecessor whose bugbear was “relativism”, his word for agnosticism, Francis blessed the journalists “in silence because some of you are of different faith and some have no faith”, the first time, I think, that a pope has acknowledged atheists in a non-hostile manner.
On the issues, for the moment, he has concentrated on poverty, admitting that this is a political issue – it could hardly be otherwise. He has worked all his priestly life to alleviate poverty, supported striking workers but at the same time criticised the liberation theology which his south American brethren did so much to develop and propagate. There are aspects which appeal to the left but he is far from being a left-wing pope which also should not surprise us. There is still some doubt about what he did under the Videla regime in the 70’s; there are some accusations that he reported two Jesuits to the authorities who then arrested and tortured them and counterclaims that he actually saved them. Now that he is pope the real story will appear through the fog.
There are conflicting accounts of what he did last week when he met Cardinal Bernard Law, accused of covering up pedophile scandals in Boston; he may or may not have told him to withdraw from his position in St. Mary Major.
On what is legal for the rest of the world, we can hardly expect any change; no to legal abortion, no to gay sex between consenting adults (and probably straight sex between unmarried consenting adults), no to married priests. Cardinal Bergoglio was a conservative, Pope Francis is not going to change in 4 days nor in 400 and probably not in 4,000.
But he will certainly work to reclaim Latin America from the evangelical Christians and secularisation and has already begun the job just by being elected.
The biggest question mark is on how he will deal with the Vatican’s administration – its banking and the Curia. This is a civil service that has had 1,500 years of experience (actually more like 2,500 as they are the heirs of the Roman Empire and Republican administration). They make Sir Humphrey Appleby look like a parvenu and many a would-be reforming pope has ended up being able to do little or nothing or being consumed by curial politics like Francis’s predecessor.
Vatican legend has it that John Paul I was removed by a spiked tisane – Il Fatto Quotidiano’s satirical supplement yesterday listed Francis’s positive features and concluded that the tisane had already been brewed. Whether it’s an infusion or just political poison, Francis will need all his own political skills to do what he wants to do.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Playing Chicken with a Country
Until yesterday, it looked very much as if Italy’s elected representatives were playing chicken with their country. In the original version of the game, two drivers drive at each on a straight road and the one that blinks and swerves is chicken. If neither yield, both die. It was a favorite metaphor used by game theorists in the ‘50s and ‘60s to analyse nuclear stand-off which would have led to the well-chosen acronym of the time MAD or mutually assured destruction.For the first players, the risk was that two people would die, usually young males – Bertrand Russell calls them “youthful degenerates”. In the second the whole world might have been destroyed. Today’s Italian variety is closer to the first as the threat is not of physical destruction and affects only one country directly and the rest of Europe only indirectly. The players though, are far from “youthful”.
The challenges are various and linked – each one has the parties careering towards each other on collision courses and each crash avoided means another challenge tomorrow or the next day.
There are three big tournaments facing the political class.
The first was the election of the speakers of the two chambers which took place yesterday. The second is the formation of a new government which will begin on Wednesday and the third is the election of a new president of the republic which will begin on 15 April.
Each process has different procedures and electoral systems but apart from the lower house, no one has a clear majority anywhere. In a normal political set-up, the four groups would negotiate over sharing the positions and the policy points to pursue – a more or less equitable balance of pork and principle which is the foundation of any government in normal times… but we are not in normal times.
Until Friday evening, Pierluigi Bersani’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) had two worthy but very much old-style party apparatchiks as candidates. One, Anna Finocchiaro had been photographed (above left, caught by a Berlusconi gossip magazine) using her police escorts as porters in an Ikea shopping expedition. On the day that the Pope refused an escort, those photographs had become a serious liability. The PD has its own internal game of chicken as Bersani and the runner-up in party primaries, Matteo Renzi spar over who will lead the party in the likely elections in June or a year from now.Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) put forward their own candidates and said they would never support any of the traditional parties.
Mario Monti’s Civic Choice (SC) should have been Bersani’s natural ally but as Bersani tried to negotiate with Grillo, Monti started to play dog in the manger, putting forward his own name as possible senate speaker and wanting to resign as prime minister (and leave the country in the lurch). His lack of success at the polls seem to have instantly transformed him from the respected non-partisan expert to a mean and petty jobbing politician just out for short-term gain.
On the centre-right, Silvio Berlusconi’s first aim is to prevent any more of his trials coming to verdict. He and his People of Freedom (PdL) party are not going to support any government which has anti-corruption and conflict of interest measures in the programme as Bersani’s does.
The result until Friday was stalemate over the medium term negotiations. There was always going to a result of some sort as the PD has a majority in the Chamber and in the Senate after three inconclusive votes, they move to a run-off between the two leading candidates so someone had to win but it would not have been a consensus candidate. In chicken terms, the smash had just been postponed as there was no negotiation on the much more difficult and important issues of government and president.
Then between the Friday and Saturday ballots, the PD put up two new candidates, former UNHCR spokeswoman Laura Boldrini for the Chamber and former anti-mafia prosecutor and judge, Piero Grasso. (top left) Both were elected for the first time last month and have no odour of stale parties; Boldrini has been an outspoken defender of refugees and the weaker members of society and reiterated her position in her acceptance speech. She is a woman and relatively young at 51 and was elected in Nichi Vendola’s Left, Ecology, Freedom (SEL) party. By putting her up as candidate, Bersani made more than a nod to M5S and other protest voters.
The anti-mafia Grasso was faced by another Sicilian, the outgoing speaker, the PdL Renato Schifani, a lawyer whose firm defended mafiosi and who was himself indirectly implicated in mafia dealings. The result was going to be very close and there was a slim possibility that Schifani might have won. The M5S Sicilians knew they could not go home responsible for electing Schifano over Grasso… and they blinked. Twelve of them (more than just the Sicilians) voted (in a secret ballot) for Grasso and against Grillo’s dictat. Grillo himself threw brickbats at them from his Jupiter like position outside Parliament.
Bersani still doesn’t have a majority in the Senate but he is just a little stronger than he was yesterday. For the moment he will have to work alone, without open negotiations with the other parties – he will prepare a list of possible cabinet ministers, a good number from outside the PD or SEL and a series of measures which M5S might not support but will not prevent. Bersani feels strong enough to ask for a full mandate to form a government (rather a non-committal exploratory mandate).
If he gets that far, the next collision course will be the vote of confidence in the Senate and he knows that he changed course a little and M5S is far from monolithic.
Italy’s domestic MAD has been put off for the moment.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Mystification and Populism – the genius of Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo.
Yesterday a group of about 150 parliamentarians demonstrated outside the Palace of Justice in Milan. They then moved into the building to the office of prosecutor Ilda Boccassini. They were members of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and were protesting against what they call the persecution of their leader by the judiciary.
When dozens of angry people, privileged members of the legislature, appear in front of an office, this is no longer a protest, it is a threat towards the individual and her institution even if there were no explicit physical threats.
Before the elections, Beppe Grillo quoted Cromwell’s dissolution of the Rump Parliament approvingly “Take away this bauble” screamed Grillo in January. Since taking a quarter of the Italian vote, he has been no less tender about Parliament and above all its political parties.
Italian institutions – the courts and the parliament are under siege and the easy description is “populism” but it’s not always an easy concept to define.
At the theatre, we grant the performance a willing suspension of disbelief. In politics, the successful demagogue forces us into that unwilling suspension of disbelief. This election campaign gave the stage to two masters of the black art of mystification which is at the basis of any populist movement.
The secret of mystification in politics is to present an argument and a narrative that our rational selves can see are true and then to embellish them in order to make non-logical deductions and reach false conclusions with a performance which obfuscates the faulty reasoning. Berlusconi and Grillo have the conjuror’s sleight of hand and hide the workings of their magic.
Berlusconi started from the premise that Italians who pay taxes get a lousy deal. So he promised to reimburse the IMU property tax either from the state or even personally implicitly suggesting that he is the state (or better and more generous than the state).
He promises “freedom” meaning freedom from taxes; freedom of religion meaning public support for Catholic schools; freedom of expression means his media may write or broadcast anything. But we all like “freedom” don’t we?
For his part, Grillo lies… about the past and he fudges the future. He attacked La Repubblica for claiming that he had invited al Qaeda to target the Italian Parliament and given them the coordinates. All La Repubblica had done (along with most other Italian media) was to put the clip of him doing just that on their site. (as I did too, for what it’s worth). For the future, like Berlusconi, he promised material support, a €1,000 dole for the unwaged, more than many Italians get by working.
Grillo also uses the hardy perennials of populism, targetting Jews, women and immigrants.
He has been rude about Jews in a spat with journalist Gad Lerner and Israel in an interview with Menachem Gantz and happily leaves extremely offensive antisemitic remarks on his blog. Recently he refused to even talk about the question to AP’s Frances D’Emilio.
In a different way he is as sexist as Berlusconi when he expelled Bologna city councillor, Federica Salsi after she had taken part in a television talk show. He accused her using the television as the G-spot for an orgasm.
He is against giving citizenship to children born in Italy to immigrant parents, he was at the very least unwise when he suggested that when carabinieri want to beat up a Moroccan, they should do in private and not in front of a camera. And he has made friendly remarks to members of the neo-Fascist Casa Pound.
Both Grillo and Berlusconi refuse dialogue. Grillo has never been on a talkshow and though he has been interviewed (rarely and only the foreign press), he has never accepted difficult questioning. Berlusconi had rarely been off screen but like Grillo refuses to face hard questions and often attacks the interviewer.
Berlusconi started his career proposing a “partito leggero” (the best translation I could come up with was “nimble party”). Grillo wants no party at all and wants to get rid of all political parties.
Their populism is defined by their unmediated contact with their followers. They refuse any form of reins, neither party nor parliament nor courts. Their power and authority comes from the their supporters. Berlusconi put it very clearly when he won the 1994 elections – he was “unto dal popolo”, anointed by the people, not elected or given a limited mandate within the rule of law, and like the king anointed by god, Berlusconi’s oil too, could not be washed off.
Grillo goes in the other direction – he talks about popular democracy, web democracy but he is still claiming Rousseau’s “General Will”. He is a Robespierre without the smart knee britches and thankfully without the guillotine.
Despite their methods which earned them the epithet clown from The Economist and the German SPD leader, Peer Steinbrück, they are as Gianfranco Pasquino said “political entrepreneurs” and very successful ones too. In their different ways, they have interpreted popular discontent and mobilised it
They are sirens or pied pipers. Both metaphors are valid. They seduce passersby with their songs and Berlusconi at least, has wrecked the country or brought Italy very close to sinking. Grillo might complete the wreck. And he more than Berlusconi promises to rid Hamelin of the political rats “tutti a casa… arrendetevi, siete circondati!” “everybody go home – you’re surrounded” he shouted at parliament.
Now his supporters are in Parliament and are trying to work out what to do while Berlusconi’s are threatening to boycott the place.
The Italian constitution is robustly constructed but its institutions have never been more at risk.
When dozens of angry people, privileged members of the legislature, appear in front of an office, this is no longer a protest, it is a threat towards the individual and her institution even if there were no explicit physical threats.
Before the elections, Beppe Grillo quoted Cromwell’s dissolution of the Rump Parliament approvingly “Take away this bauble” screamed Grillo in January. Since taking a quarter of the Italian vote, he has been no less tender about Parliament and above all its political parties.
Italian institutions – the courts and the parliament are under siege and the easy description is “populism” but it’s not always an easy concept to define.
At the theatre, we grant the performance a willing suspension of disbelief. In politics, the successful demagogue forces us into that unwilling suspension of disbelief. This election campaign gave the stage to two masters of the black art of mystification which is at the basis of any populist movement.
The secret of mystification in politics is to present an argument and a narrative that our rational selves can see are true and then to embellish them in order to make non-logical deductions and reach false conclusions with a performance which obfuscates the faulty reasoning. Berlusconi and Grillo have the conjuror’s sleight of hand and hide the workings of their magic.
Berlusconi started from the premise that Italians who pay taxes get a lousy deal. So he promised to reimburse the IMU property tax either from the state or even personally implicitly suggesting that he is the state (or better and more generous than the state).
He promises “freedom” meaning freedom from taxes; freedom of religion meaning public support for Catholic schools; freedom of expression means his media may write or broadcast anything. But we all like “freedom” don’t we?
For his part, Grillo lies… about the past and he fudges the future. He attacked La Repubblica for claiming that he had invited al Qaeda to target the Italian Parliament and given them the coordinates. All La Repubblica had done (along with most other Italian media) was to put the clip of him doing just that on their site. (as I did too, for what it’s worth). For the future, like Berlusconi, he promised material support, a €1,000 dole for the unwaged, more than many Italians get by working.
Grillo also uses the hardy perennials of populism, targetting Jews, women and immigrants.
He has been rude about Jews in a spat with journalist Gad Lerner and Israel in an interview with Menachem Gantz and happily leaves extremely offensive antisemitic remarks on his blog. Recently he refused to even talk about the question to AP’s Frances D’Emilio.
In a different way he is as sexist as Berlusconi when he expelled Bologna city councillor, Federica Salsi after she had taken part in a television talk show. He accused her using the television as the G-spot for an orgasm.
He is against giving citizenship to children born in Italy to immigrant parents, he was at the very least unwise when he suggested that when carabinieri want to beat up a Moroccan, they should do in private and not in front of a camera. And he has made friendly remarks to members of the neo-Fascist Casa Pound.
Both Grillo and Berlusconi refuse dialogue. Grillo has never been on a talkshow and though he has been interviewed (rarely and only the foreign press), he has never accepted difficult questioning. Berlusconi had rarely been off screen but like Grillo refuses to face hard questions and often attacks the interviewer.
Berlusconi started his career proposing a “partito leggero” (the best translation I could come up with was “nimble party”). Grillo wants no party at all and wants to get rid of all political parties.
Their populism is defined by their unmediated contact with their followers. They refuse any form of reins, neither party nor parliament nor courts. Their power and authority comes from the their supporters. Berlusconi put it very clearly when he won the 1994 elections – he was “unto dal popolo”, anointed by the people, not elected or given a limited mandate within the rule of law, and like the king anointed by god, Berlusconi’s oil too, could not be washed off.
Grillo goes in the other direction – he talks about popular democracy, web democracy but he is still claiming Rousseau’s “General Will”. He is a Robespierre without the smart knee britches and thankfully without the guillotine.
Despite their methods which earned them the epithet clown from The Economist and the German SPD leader, Peer Steinbrück, they are as Gianfranco Pasquino said “political entrepreneurs” and very successful ones too. In their different ways, they have interpreted popular discontent and mobilised it
They are sirens or pied pipers. Both metaphors are valid. They seduce passersby with their songs and Berlusconi at least, has wrecked the country or brought Italy very close to sinking. Grillo might complete the wreck. And he more than Berlusconi promises to rid Hamelin of the political rats “tutti a casa… arrendetevi, siete circondati!” “everybody go home – you’re surrounded” he shouted at parliament.
Now his supporters are in Parliament and are trying to work out what to do while Berlusconi’s are threatening to boycott the place.
The Italian constitution is robustly constructed but its institutions have never been more at risk.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Our Man in the Vatican
Virgilio Scattolini was a man with imagination and an eye for the main chance… or at least an easier life. Before, during and after the war, he gave out (or rather, sold) information on what was going on in the Vatican. Given the crucial role that Pius XII and the whole of the Vatican played over that period, his intelligence found a ready market among journalist and spies of all sorts. When the OSS (the CIA’s predecessor) archives were opened in the Seventies, historians too lapped up Scattolini’s wisdom stored in Washington and now made more reliable by the “Top Secret” stamp.
The problem was that Scattolini was making it all up.
Graham Greene was in Rome at the time of Scattolini’s trial for fraud which was well covered in the Italian and British press (which punned on his name and called him “little boxes”) and I would like to think that he took Scattolini as his model for Jim Wormald, Our Man in Havana, the vacuum cleaner salesman who invents a Cuban weapons programme to keep MI5 happy.
Today, the world is a lot less tense and some cardinals tweet and blog and give interviews but the Vatican remains a very secretive place; the conclave is no ordinary election process. Even the recent transfer of power in China was done in the presence of party representatives. But nominally at least, Chinese leaders are responsible to the Chinese people, not the Holy Spirit.
This means that there are still a lot of latterday Scattolinis in Rome at the moment.
I doubt that any of them… us, I suppose since I’m also asked to explain the goings on across the river, actively fabricate stories like Wormald but the reliability of our information is always a bit shaky and the temptation to embellish is very strong. The stakes are high as always but this time, more explicit than during other conclaves: sex, money and power. And the spiritual aspect of the papal succession just adds spice to the story. No one expects the presidents of the US or China to be men of God. Only in Iran and Tibet is the leader supposed to have religious qualifications alongside the political. And then, at a much more frivolous level, no one can match the Vatican for pomp and ceremony: 115 scarlet-robed gentlemen locked into a chapel painted by Michelangelo in a square colonnaded by Bernini. It is difficult to beat as the show and the substance coincide. A British coronation or a presidential inauguration is just the showy part, the substance took place elsewhere. Here they are together which explains why there are almost more journalists staking out St. Peter’s than pilgrims and tourists.
On the issues, there seems to be agreement among the cardinals that speak that the new pope should be young and energetic enough to reform the curia though there is no agreement on whether an insider with experience of the workings of the Vatican government would be better than an untainted but inexperienced outsider. He must decide on what role the Vatican banking system should play, whether to fully integrate it into the regulated European system or maintain its status as a limited off-shore tax haven. And then he must deal with sexual issues both inside and outside the Church. These go from the “inappropriate behaviour” of Cardinal Keith O’Brien (which if it was gay sex between consenting adults is legally hardly a problem in Britain today) to covering up serious criminal acts of raping children. Finally the new man will have to address the declining congregation of Catholics across the world – to secularism in Europe and North America and mostly to the competition woth Christian evangelicals in the Africa and South America.
The spiritual qualities of Their Eminences are taken for granted by members of the college. In any case, if any of them think that one of their fellow cardinals is too worldly, they are not going to say so in public.
The job description is clear enough; the candidates much less so. Since all the cardinals were appointed by two very conservative popes, the new man is unlikely to be a liberal but the Thomas à Becket syndrome does sometimes take over. This is when an appointee decides his responsibility is more towards the job itself than to the person who appointed him. It happens now and then in the US Supreme Court.
So from external deductions, the profile of the new pope is youngish, active with some curial experience but not too much, from the developing world and conservative. But anything can happen in the secrecy of the Sistine Chapel and no Scattolini is going to reveal the cardinals’ game plans.
The problem was that Scattolini was making it all up.
Graham Greene was in Rome at the time of Scattolini’s trial for fraud which was well covered in the Italian and British press (which punned on his name and called him “little boxes”) and I would like to think that he took Scattolini as his model for Jim Wormald, Our Man in Havana, the vacuum cleaner salesman who invents a Cuban weapons programme to keep MI5 happy.
Today, the world is a lot less tense and some cardinals tweet and blog and give interviews but the Vatican remains a very secretive place; the conclave is no ordinary election process. Even the recent transfer of power in China was done in the presence of party representatives. But nominally at least, Chinese leaders are responsible to the Chinese people, not the Holy Spirit.
This means that there are still a lot of latterday Scattolinis in Rome at the moment.
I doubt that any of them… us, I suppose since I’m also asked to explain the goings on across the river, actively fabricate stories like Wormald but the reliability of our information is always a bit shaky and the temptation to embellish is very strong. The stakes are high as always but this time, more explicit than during other conclaves: sex, money and power. And the spiritual aspect of the papal succession just adds spice to the story. No one expects the presidents of the US or China to be men of God. Only in Iran and Tibet is the leader supposed to have religious qualifications alongside the political. And then, at a much more frivolous level, no one can match the Vatican for pomp and ceremony: 115 scarlet-robed gentlemen locked into a chapel painted by Michelangelo in a square colonnaded by Bernini. It is difficult to beat as the show and the substance coincide. A British coronation or a presidential inauguration is just the showy part, the substance took place elsewhere. Here they are together which explains why there are almost more journalists staking out St. Peter’s than pilgrims and tourists.
On the issues, there seems to be agreement among the cardinals that speak that the new pope should be young and energetic enough to reform the curia though there is no agreement on whether an insider with experience of the workings of the Vatican government would be better than an untainted but inexperienced outsider. He must decide on what role the Vatican banking system should play, whether to fully integrate it into the regulated European system or maintain its status as a limited off-shore tax haven. And then he must deal with sexual issues both inside and outside the Church. These go from the “inappropriate behaviour” of Cardinal Keith O’Brien (which if it was gay sex between consenting adults is legally hardly a problem in Britain today) to covering up serious criminal acts of raping children. Finally the new man will have to address the declining congregation of Catholics across the world – to secularism in Europe and North America and mostly to the competition woth Christian evangelicals in the Africa and South America.
The spiritual qualities of Their Eminences are taken for granted by members of the college. In any case, if any of them think that one of their fellow cardinals is too worldly, they are not going to say so in public.
The job description is clear enough; the candidates much less so. Since all the cardinals were appointed by two very conservative popes, the new man is unlikely to be a liberal but the Thomas à Becket syndrome does sometimes take over. This is when an appointee decides his responsibility is more towards the job itself than to the person who appointed him. It happens now and then in the US Supreme Court.
So from external deductions, the profile of the new pope is youngish, active with some curial experience but not too much, from the developing world and conservative. But anything can happen in the secrecy of the Sistine Chapel and no Scattolini is going to reveal the cardinals’ game plans.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Ratings and Spread
As the results of the Italian elections came in last week, it was blindingly obvious that the country was in for a rough ride economically. There is a contrast between the internationalists and “Europeans” on the one side and the “Italianists” on the other; there is another division which almost matches the first between supporters of a continuing austerity programme and those who would like to spend now in order to get us out of the recession (the terms are not quite right they will do as shorthand).
The reality of the Italian economy did not change with the results; businesses are closing (more than 100,000 last year) and unemployment continues to rise, especially among the young. The good news is that there is a primary budget surplus (income covers expenses before interest on the national debt is paid) and a balanced budget is not far away though precisely when this will happen is a matter of discussion between the Italian government and the European Commission.
The other good news for the time being is that miraculously, the traditional Italian “welfare system” has prevented the serious unrest that we have seen in Greece… the problem is that the “welfare system” is wholly informal, based on private savings, the family and the grey economy all of which may and indeed are changing for the worst.
So Friday’s news (after the markets had closed) that Fitch had downgraded Italian bonds to BBB+, just three rungs above junk was less than earth-shattering. Once again, the ratings agencies reflected a change that had already taken place rather than predicting future developments.
There is much concern in Italy and talk, again, that the agencies are in some conflict of interest because they work for banks and therefore cannot give independent advice. This is curious as the agencies actually work in a communion of interests. They do not pretend to be independent observers; their first clients are the banks to whom they try and give sound advicein their own interet in order not to lose the job. They do not work for us the taxpayers or governments. And sometimes they are catastrophically wrong as in the case of the Lehman brothers in 2008.
And at least partially because of those mistakes, their pronouncements are taken a lot more circumspectly today than they were five years ago.
Agencies are subject to what can conveniently be called the “lexicographer’s paradox”. Does the dictionary just reflect the way we use a word or is it normative and instruct us on how a word should be used? Both of course; and ratings agencies do much the same.
The Minister for the Economy Vittorio Grilli said yesterday that he was “confident” that the next round of Italian bonds would sell without any problems on Tuesday and Wednesday which seems likely but he was also said that there would be a new government “in the next few days” which is highly unlikely.
The Monti reforms encouraged by the EU and implictly by the markets are still in place and will continue to be applied until a new government takes office and decides to modify them so in the short term, the prospect is not rosy but not grim either. There is a serious lack of credit available to wobbling Italian businesses and, a problem which needs to be faced and the massive unpaid public sector bills to private businesses would be enough get the economy started again. So in the medium to long term, there is a need for structural reform in Italy and that will need a government, and a strong one too.
Italy is not Greece with a weak economy and spending and debt out of control but it is not Belgium either where the economy could support the country and public spending quite happily for 541 days without a government.
The reality of the Italian economy did not change with the results; businesses are closing (more than 100,000 last year) and unemployment continues to rise, especially among the young. The good news is that there is a primary budget surplus (income covers expenses before interest on the national debt is paid) and a balanced budget is not far away though precisely when this will happen is a matter of discussion between the Italian government and the European Commission.
The other good news for the time being is that miraculously, the traditional Italian “welfare system” has prevented the serious unrest that we have seen in Greece… the problem is that the “welfare system” is wholly informal, based on private savings, the family and the grey economy all of which may and indeed are changing for the worst.
So Friday’s news (after the markets had closed) that Fitch had downgraded Italian bonds to BBB+, just three rungs above junk was less than earth-shattering. Once again, the ratings agencies reflected a change that had already taken place rather than predicting future developments.
There is much concern in Italy and talk, again, that the agencies are in some conflict of interest because they work for banks and therefore cannot give independent advice. This is curious as the agencies actually work in a communion of interests. They do not pretend to be independent observers; their first clients are the banks to whom they try and give sound advicein their own interet in order not to lose the job. They do not work for us the taxpayers or governments. And sometimes they are catastrophically wrong as in the case of the Lehman brothers in 2008.
And at least partially because of those mistakes, their pronouncements are taken a lot more circumspectly today than they were five years ago.
Agencies are subject to what can conveniently be called the “lexicographer’s paradox”. Does the dictionary just reflect the way we use a word or is it normative and instruct us on how a word should be used? Both of course; and ratings agencies do much the same.
The Minister for the Economy Vittorio Grilli said yesterday that he was “confident” that the next round of Italian bonds would sell without any problems on Tuesday and Wednesday which seems likely but he was also said that there would be a new government “in the next few days” which is highly unlikely.
The Monti reforms encouraged by the EU and implictly by the markets are still in place and will continue to be applied until a new government takes office and decides to modify them so in the short term, the prospect is not rosy but not grim either. There is a serious lack of credit available to wobbling Italian businesses and, a problem which needs to be faced and the massive unpaid public sector bills to private businesses would be enough get the economy started again. So in the medium to long term, there is a need for structural reform in Italy and that will need a government, and a strong one too.
Italy is not Greece with a weak economy and spending and debt out of control but it is not Belgium either where the economy could support the country and public spending quite happily for 541 days without a government.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The painful ways out of the Italian maze.
Italy faces difficult choices over the next few weeks and a tough reality for the next six months or more.
In two weeks time the new Parliament will assemble and will elect its new officers so there is already jostling over who should have the prestige and power of the speakers’ jobs. Formal negotiations for the new government won’t start till then but the informal bargaining has already begun with the leaders marking territory and putting out feelers.
Italy has “perfect bicameralism”, the two houses have equal power. In the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, the electoral system gives a majority premium to the overall winner, in this case, Pierluigi Bersani and the Democratic Party (PD) led coalition but in the Senate there is no majority. So in order to govern, even temporarily, Bersani will have to come a deal with either Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition of the People of Freedom (PdL), Northern League (LN) and right wing Fratelli d’Italia, or Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S). The fourth player in the Senate, Mario Monti could easily reach a deal with Bersani but even together, they would not have a majority.
To achieve a majority, there are three alternatives, one difficult and two almost impossible.
A grand coalition of Bersani, Monti and Berlusconi would have the numbers and indeed was just the combination that governed Italy from November 2011 until now. But even then it was clearly an unstable and temporary alliance and the bruising electoral campaign combined with serious personal and ideological divisions mean that a repeat performance is highly unlikely. Above all, Bersani’s policies are likely to clash with Berlusconi’s agenda. Bersani has promised a serious conflict on interest law and a revision of last year’s toothless anti-corruption law. He would also maintain much of Monti’s austerity package. Berlusconi would be unhappy with all of these measures even though has been making some overtures towards Bersani, they are more for show than substance.
All the leaders are trying hard at the moment to seem “reasonable” and “open to compromise” because none of them wants to be seen to be responsible for preventing the formation of a government and the likely fiscal chaos that would follow.
The second unlikely scenario is minority government which lasts. Bersani could probably persuade the centre-right or Grillo to abstain at the vote of confidence (Grillo has said explicitly that he will give a confidence vote to anyone) and so allow him to form a government but then he would have to navigate between the two of them in order to pass each and every measure. The only hope that such a fragile arrangement might last is if the external pressures from the markets, the EU and th ECB are enough to dissuade Grillo or Berlusconi from bringing the government down.
The most likely outcome of the next month’s negotiations is a Bersani or possibly semi-political/semi-technocrat prime minister like Giuliano Amato governnment with a check list of measures and a date stamp on it. Amato did something similar 20 years ago in Italy’s last institutional crisis. He was a Socialist then and is still part of the broad left but has not been in party politics for years so has a faint aura of impartiality.
Whoever leads this hypothetical government would have to draw up a list of tasks starting with the election of the new President of the Republic and moving on to election reform, parliamentary reform and other measures which Grillo might support like conflict of interests, corruption and cutting the costs of politics.
Bersani has already started making overtures to Grillo both on the measures they might work on together and on positions. There has been a suggestion that a grillino might become speaker of the Chamber, even that it might be Marta Grande 25, the youngest deputy. There are echoes of the last wave of a new populist movement hitting Parliament. In 1994, the Northern League won 117 in the Chamber and 60 in the Senate (Grillo has 108 deputies and 54 senators) and the 31 year old Leghista Irene Pivetti became speaker.
Agreement on some reforms is not impossible and Grillo has already lowered his volume from his previous deafening mass rally levels to a calmer political comuniqué level. He has said that he will represent the Five Star Movement in the government formation negotiations that President Napolitano will manage as soon as the new parliamentarians have taken their seats. This means he is moving from rabble-rousing mode towards a pragmatic politician stance. He’s certainly not there yet but it’s a change.
The first deadline is the election of Napolitano’s successor a process which must start 30 days before the end of his mandate or 15 April. Both houses come together with representatives of the regional governments to elect the president, about a 1,000 people. For the first three ballots, a two thirds majority is necessary which in theory could come from Bersani, Monti and Grillo; not very likely. From the fourth ballot, a simple majority is enough Monti and Bersani. But the future president is very much part of the negotiation process.
Grillo could agree with Bersani to change the electoral law but it would not be easy to decide on what sort of reform. The other reforms, conflict of interest, corruption and cutting political costs are much more controversial and so more likely to be blocked by a Berlusconi opposition.
This means that the new government is likely to have a very short life, not much more than electing a new president whose first job would be to dissolve parliament and go back to the polls. At the earliest this could happen in July but much more likely in the Autumn or perhaps Spring 2014 given Italy’s tradition of spring elections and the inevitable inertia in parliament. The longer the uncertainty goes on, the more likely is some sort of debt crisis which will inevitably colour the next campaign. This time the possibility of having to take up the EU/ECB/ESM bailout package is much more likely.
The result of new elections will probably not repeat this week’s results as all the leaders will try to make up for their shortcomings in the last campaign. For better or worse, Berlusconi will have most of his pending court cases settled; Bersani will be flanked or replaced by Matteo Renzi the young mayor of Florence who wants a Blairite renewal of the party; Grillo will have had a short spell in or close to power and Monti will have to decide whether to carry on in politics.
It will be a bumpy ride for all of them and the rest of Italy.
A slightly modified version of this was published by the BBC Bumpy ride ahead for Italy after indecisive election
In two weeks time the new Parliament will assemble and will elect its new officers so there is already jostling over who should have the prestige and power of the speakers’ jobs. Formal negotiations for the new government won’t start till then but the informal bargaining has already begun with the leaders marking territory and putting out feelers.
Italy has “perfect bicameralism”, the two houses have equal power. In the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, the electoral system gives a majority premium to the overall winner, in this case, Pierluigi Bersani and the Democratic Party (PD) led coalition but in the Senate there is no majority. So in order to govern, even temporarily, Bersani will have to come a deal with either Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition of the People of Freedom (PdL), Northern League (LN) and right wing Fratelli d’Italia, or Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S). The fourth player in the Senate, Mario Monti could easily reach a deal with Bersani but even together, they would not have a majority.
To achieve a majority, there are three alternatives, one difficult and two almost impossible.
A grand coalition of Bersani, Monti and Berlusconi would have the numbers and indeed was just the combination that governed Italy from November 2011 until now. But even then it was clearly an unstable and temporary alliance and the bruising electoral campaign combined with serious personal and ideological divisions mean that a repeat performance is highly unlikely. Above all, Bersani’s policies are likely to clash with Berlusconi’s agenda. Bersani has promised a serious conflict on interest law and a revision of last year’s toothless anti-corruption law. He would also maintain much of Monti’s austerity package. Berlusconi would be unhappy with all of these measures even though has been making some overtures towards Bersani, they are more for show than substance.
All the leaders are trying hard at the moment to seem “reasonable” and “open to compromise” because none of them wants to be seen to be responsible for preventing the formation of a government and the likely fiscal chaos that would follow.
The second unlikely scenario is minority government which lasts. Bersani could probably persuade the centre-right or Grillo to abstain at the vote of confidence (Grillo has said explicitly that he will give a confidence vote to anyone) and so allow him to form a government but then he would have to navigate between the two of them in order to pass each and every measure. The only hope that such a fragile arrangement might last is if the external pressures from the markets, the EU and th ECB are enough to dissuade Grillo or Berlusconi from bringing the government down.
The most likely outcome of the next month’s negotiations is a Bersani or possibly semi-political/semi-technocrat prime minister like Giuliano Amato governnment with a check list of measures and a date stamp on it. Amato did something similar 20 years ago in Italy’s last institutional crisis. He was a Socialist then and is still part of the broad left but has not been in party politics for years so has a faint aura of impartiality.
Whoever leads this hypothetical government would have to draw up a list of tasks starting with the election of the new President of the Republic and moving on to election reform, parliamentary reform and other measures which Grillo might support like conflict of interests, corruption and cutting the costs of politics.
Bersani has already started making overtures to Grillo both on the measures they might work on together and on positions. There has been a suggestion that a grillino might become speaker of the Chamber, even that it might be Marta Grande 25, the youngest deputy. There are echoes of the last wave of a new populist movement hitting Parliament. In 1994, the Northern League won 117 in the Chamber and 60 in the Senate (Grillo has 108 deputies and 54 senators) and the 31 year old Leghista Irene Pivetti became speaker.
Agreement on some reforms is not impossible and Grillo has already lowered his volume from his previous deafening mass rally levels to a calmer political comuniqué level. He has said that he will represent the Five Star Movement in the government formation negotiations that President Napolitano will manage as soon as the new parliamentarians have taken their seats. This means he is moving from rabble-rousing mode towards a pragmatic politician stance. He’s certainly not there yet but it’s a change.
The first deadline is the election of Napolitano’s successor a process which must start 30 days before the end of his mandate or 15 April. Both houses come together with representatives of the regional governments to elect the president, about a 1,000 people. For the first three ballots, a two thirds majority is necessary which in theory could come from Bersani, Monti and Grillo; not very likely. From the fourth ballot, a simple majority is enough Monti and Bersani. But the future president is very much part of the negotiation process.
Grillo could agree with Bersani to change the electoral law but it would not be easy to decide on what sort of reform. The other reforms, conflict of interest, corruption and cutting political costs are much more controversial and so more likely to be blocked by a Berlusconi opposition.
This means that the new government is likely to have a very short life, not much more than electing a new president whose first job would be to dissolve parliament and go back to the polls. At the earliest this could happen in July but much more likely in the Autumn or perhaps Spring 2014 given Italy’s tradition of spring elections and the inevitable inertia in parliament. The longer the uncertainty goes on, the more likely is some sort of debt crisis which will inevitably colour the next campaign. This time the possibility of having to take up the EU/ECB/ESM bailout package is much more likely.
The result of new elections will probably not repeat this week’s results as all the leaders will try to make up for their shortcomings in the last campaign. For better or worse, Berlusconi will have most of his pending court cases settled; Bersani will be flanked or replaced by Matteo Renzi the young mayor of Florence who wants a Blairite renewal of the party; Grillo will have had a short spell in or close to power and Monti will have to decide whether to carry on in politics.
It will be a bumpy ride for all of them and the rest of Italy.
A slightly modified version of this was published by the BBC Bumpy ride ahead for Italy after indecisive election
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Chaos
There is village near Agrigento called Kaos, made famous by a Pirandello short story. Now the chaos has spread from Sicily to the whole country and risks going beyond into the rest of Europe.
Opinion polls and reason both suggested that Italy’s best interest was served by a solid, not very imaginative and slightly less severe continuation of last year’s Mario Monti-led reformist government. One which would have led Italy out of recession into not quite green and verdant pastures but at least something more comfortable.
Instead, Italian voters rewarded the two great showmen of Italian politics, both populists and mystifiers, the 76 year old Silvio Berlusconi and the 64 year old Beppe Grillo. Starting more or less from the right and the left their promises and protests convinced more than half the population to vote for them. The electoral system means that the centre left which polled a mite more than Berlusconi will have a big majority in the the Chamber, the lower house but no one will have a majority in the Senate. So the country which most needs stability will not have a government that lasts for more than a few months.
Ethically, politically, ideologically and personally there is no way that a lasting coalition can be formed so new elections seem inevitable. The new Parliament will assemble on 15 March and elect their speakers. Then President Napolitano will consult with party leaders and go through the arcane ritual of government formation. Unless there is some very unusual alchemy between now and then, he will have to ask the PD’s Pierluigi Bersani to try to put together a majority in the Senate. He will not be able to so at best, he or someone else will act as caretaker to elect a new president (elected by both houses and due to begin on 15 April) who will then call new elections.
This is a revolution with two groupings led by a single man controlling the destiny of a country and indirectly a continent. Grillo’s Five Star Movement has now spokesman or clear mechanism for deciding on policy – it might dissolve in a few weeks, it might develop an independent statute or it might stay under Grillo’s direct control.
And when Italians go back to vote maybe in June, maybe in Autumn, if the older parties don’t succeed in addressing the issues, then the populists will do even better, the cost of Italy’s debt will spiral out of control and the whole euro system will be threatened. Chaos.
Opinion polls and reason both suggested that Italy’s best interest was served by a solid, not very imaginative and slightly less severe continuation of last year’s Mario Monti-led reformist government. One which would have led Italy out of recession into not quite green and verdant pastures but at least something more comfortable.
Instead, Italian voters rewarded the two great showmen of Italian politics, both populists and mystifiers, the 76 year old Silvio Berlusconi and the 64 year old Beppe Grillo. Starting more or less from the right and the left their promises and protests convinced more than half the population to vote for them. The electoral system means that the centre left which polled a mite more than Berlusconi will have a big majority in the the Chamber, the lower house but no one will have a majority in the Senate. So the country which most needs stability will not have a government that lasts for more than a few months.
Ethically, politically, ideologically and personally there is no way that a lasting coalition can be formed so new elections seem inevitable. The new Parliament will assemble on 15 March and elect their speakers. Then President Napolitano will consult with party leaders and go through the arcane ritual of government formation. Unless there is some very unusual alchemy between now and then, he will have to ask the PD’s Pierluigi Bersani to try to put together a majority in the Senate. He will not be able to so at best, he or someone else will act as caretaker to elect a new president (elected by both houses and due to begin on 15 April) who will then call new elections.
This is a revolution with two groupings led by a single man controlling the destiny of a country and indirectly a continent. Grillo’s Five Star Movement has now spokesman or clear mechanism for deciding on policy – it might dissolve in a few weeks, it might develop an independent statute or it might stay under Grillo’s direct control.
And when Italians go back to vote maybe in June, maybe in Autumn, if the older parties don’t succeed in addressing the issues, then the populists will do even better, the cost of Italy’s debt will spiral out of control and the whole euro system will be threatened. Chaos.
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Twitter Conclave
It is not only Benedict XVI who has revolutionised the Roman Catholic Church with his resignation.Next month’s conclave has already been conditioned by the scandals that Benedict was not able to clean up and which were certainly one of the reasons for his abdication. I was asked this morning (top left) what effects this would have on the Church and the conclave – difficult in a few soundbites, but a clear and short answer came a couple of hours later.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned as cardinal and as primate of Scotland because of allegations of what he called “inappropriate behaviour” in the 1980s. He was due to turn 75 next month so might have had to step down during the conclave just for age but because of the suggestion of sexual misconduct, he decided not to even take part in the conclave in order to avoid speculation and pressure on his fellow cardinals.
There is a hint of Agatha Christie in the pre-conclave moves. There were 117 cardinals with voting rights when Benedict announced his resignation. The Indonesian Cardinal Darmaatmadja, said he would not be coming for health reasons. Then O’Brien resigned… and then there were 115. We know that American catholics have been putting pressure on Cardinal Roger Mahony not to attend the conclave. He is alleged to have covered up sex abuse in the diocese of Los Angeles and it will be interesting to see if he continues to take no notice of his critics but O’Brien’s move must weigh heavily on him.
This comes after a week of speculation on a secret report by three cardinals on the Vatican scandals. Concita De Gregori wrote in La Repubblica that there was a homosexual lobby (it was not clear if the “lobby” was just gay or whether what was really meant was pedophile – perhaps not a huge difference in the Vatican but outside the difference between one and the other is 10 years in gaol quite apart from the social condemnation). Nothing was quoted explicitly from the report which in theory at least has only been seen by the three authors and the pope. Though as David Moynihan pointed out, all the witnesses knew what they said and almost certainly confered with each other.
Then came the Vatican’s condemnation of press speculation aimed at conditioning the conclave… a rather futile hope as there are more cameramen and commentators than tourists braving the rain and sleet around St. Peter’s today.
The Vatican and the whole of the Roman Catholic Church is going through its own clash of civilisations and clash of generations.
The heirarchy has always maintained a tight grip on information and the behaviour of its people. They were able to present the Paolo Gabriele case as “Vatileaks” as if the scandal was the leaks and not the content of the leaks. Shoot the messenger was the result even if Gabriele got off lightly. The only way to stop speculation is to publish the Three Cardinals’ Report and to discuss Vatican banking policy in public. But that is not going to happen.
At the same time, Cardinal Mahony is tweeting and blogging and the pope himself tweets (or at least has a Twitter account). They are using social media and all the other media to push their own message but baulk at the idea that other Catholics (or non-Catholics) can use the same methods. But they are already using these media – the sex abuse victims themselves use the web to share their experiences and work out what strategies to use.
So that even though the Vatican would like to have the Kremlin’s control of the media, they cannot match the Soviet Union’s firepower (or Putin’s for that matter). This means there is much scope for change in the form and substance of the conclave, and even more so in what will follow.
Another question this morning was what can the Church do to overcome its difficulties – the Curia has always run the Roman Church’s government but in the last 30 years they have had a much freer hand than before. For the first part of John Paul II’s reign he was more concentrated on his own Poland and the rest of the world, then his illness and decline meant that he had no energy for internal reform. Benedict started his reign with intentions to at least address the sex abuse scandals if not the banking problems (the two biggest issues) but he did not have resolve to get to the bottom of them nor the political ability to manoeuvre the Curia.
It will take an able and highly manipulative (in the good sense and bad) pope to put the barque of St. Peter back onto a clear course. There eminences will indeed be looking for a much more political and energetic man to take over and since all of them were appointed by conservatives, they will likely appoint another conservative. But he will have to deal with pressure from the Catholic faithful and the media, like Cardinal O’Brien.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Uncertain Italian Elections
The last few elections in Italy have been fairly easy to predict – not always the details but the big picture. There were two blocs and one was going to win; the only doubt was by how much and whether the winner in the lower house would have a working majority in the Senate.
With six players on the field, the geometry and the tactics become very complicated.
The first unknown is the weather. It is snowing in much of central Italy and more is expected tomorrow in the centre and the north. It is raining here in Rome and heavy rain and some storms are forecast for tomorrow for the south. This means that those who are politically less committed or physically less able might not make the effort to go and vote which will weigh more heavily on Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) whose voters tend to be both older and until December certainly, were more fed up than others. It will give an edge to Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) whose supporters are extremely fired up and are younger.
Campaigning stopped at midnight last night, the idea being that voters should have a “day of reflection” today and go and vote tomorrow and Monday morning but there is plenty of comment on the web and in all the media.
The last day was marked by M5S filling piazza S. Giovanni in Rome. The crowd was thin at the beginning as candidates and councillors paraded across the stage telling the crowd what they had done or what they would do when elected, a sort of oral tweet which certainly did not allow any of them to show depth but did show how young most of them are and how little experience they had of the political game, qualities which the movement emphasises.
By the time Grillo appeared the crowd had swelled to fill the whole square; the organisers claimed 800,000 people, certainly it was a lot of people and full of adulation. They are talking of polling more than 20% and it is certainly extraodinary the sort of unlikely people who say they will vote for Grillo.The majority are indeed younger disillusioned left wing voters but there are a good number of older ex-Berlusconi people.
Once again, Italy has invented a new form of politics…
The other two closing rallies were damp squibs in comparison. Pierluigi Bersani held his in a medium sized Roman theatre with the only novelty being Nanni Moretti’s endorsement. Ten years Moretti had been the establishment left’s sternest critic when he publicly lambasted the then leaders Walter Veltroni and Massimo D’Alema. His presence was useful for Bersani but hardly an election-clincher.
Berlusconi didn’t even turn up to the PdL’s final rally in Naples pleading conjunctivitis.
The likely result is still that the PD and its allies will win the relative majority in the Chamber which with the electoral system’s premium will give them an automatic 55% of the seats (340/630) and will take the relative majority in Senate which will not translate in a majority of the seats because the premium is give on a regional basis. The bigger choice means that an absolute majority is much more difficult today compared to 2006 or 2008 as Roberto D’Alimonte explained yesterday. He shows that the PdL cannot win a majority in the Senate (they would have to win the “red” regions of the centre which is impossible) but that a PD or even a PD-Monti alliance would not necessarily guarantee a working majority.
The uncertainty and potential instablity are the product of the electoral system and some campaign bricks dropped.
Two days ago Mario Monti declared that Chancellor Merkel would not be happy with a PD victory. She leads a centre-right party and has an election later this year so it is probable that she would prefer not to have another centre-left government among the top European players… but she is not going to say so and indeed her spokesman corrected Monti saying, not surprisingly, that the Chancellor does not take sides in other countries. Monti was left with egg on his face or worse because if there is one thing that Italians (and the rest of Europe) cannot stand, it is being told that the Germans are running the show. Today Basil Fawlty would say “don’t mention the spread” or the Deutschmark… I mean the Euro. Monti’s share of the poll was already declining, the remark has pushed it down further but it is not clear who might gain: Bersani, Berlusconi, even Grillo, or more likely, the abstentions.
Another own goal came from the only real free market economic liberal, Oscar Giannino who was forced to admit that he had lied about an MA from Chicago and indeed about his Italian laurea. It should be obvious that someone who campaigns on a platform of honesty and transparency shouldn’t fake his curriculum… but apparently not.
The electoral system sets thresholds for entry into the two houses: in the Chamber it is 4% for a single party, 10% for a coalition of two or more. This means that Giannino is very unlikely to make it (and was fairly unlikely even before his lies were published). Rivoluzione Civica, led by Sicilian prosecutor, Antonio Ingroia, also risks not making the 4% minimum. Both are trying to persuade their potential voters that supporting them is not a wasted votes while the PD and PdL argue the opposite. Berlusconi has even tried to convince wavering centre and centre-right voters that Monti’s coalition will not make 10% so that too would be a wasted vote.
In the Senate, the thresholds are doubled which means that only the four bigger parties have any serious chance of winning seats. In both houses there is plenty of scope for tactical voting with a large number of voters still undecided. There will be a lot of reflection in Italy today.
The different scenarios have been well laid by The Guardian. And La Repubblica lays out its 10 alternatives.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
With six players on the field, the geometry and the tactics become very complicated.
The first unknown is the weather. It is snowing in much of central Italy and more is expected tomorrow in the centre and the north. It is raining here in Rome and heavy rain and some storms are forecast for tomorrow for the south. This means that those who are politically less committed or physically less able might not make the effort to go and vote which will weigh more heavily on Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) whose voters tend to be both older and until December certainly, were more fed up than others. It will give an edge to Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) whose supporters are extremely fired up and are younger.
Campaigning stopped at midnight last night, the idea being that voters should have a “day of reflection” today and go and vote tomorrow and Monday morning but there is plenty of comment on the web and in all the media.
The last day was marked by M5S filling piazza S. Giovanni in Rome. The crowd was thin at the beginning as candidates and councillors paraded across the stage telling the crowd what they had done or what they would do when elected, a sort of oral tweet which certainly did not allow any of them to show depth but did show how young most of them are and how little experience they had of the political game, qualities which the movement emphasises.
By the time Grillo appeared the crowd had swelled to fill the whole square; the organisers claimed 800,000 people, certainly it was a lot of people and full of adulation. They are talking of polling more than 20% and it is certainly extraodinary the sort of unlikely people who say they will vote for Grillo.The majority are indeed younger disillusioned left wing voters but there are a good number of older ex-Berlusconi people.
Once again, Italy has invented a new form of politics…
The other two closing rallies were damp squibs in comparison. Pierluigi Bersani held his in a medium sized Roman theatre with the only novelty being Nanni Moretti’s endorsement. Ten years Moretti had been the establishment left’s sternest critic when he publicly lambasted the then leaders Walter Veltroni and Massimo D’Alema. His presence was useful for Bersani but hardly an election-clincher.
Berlusconi didn’t even turn up to the PdL’s final rally in Naples pleading conjunctivitis.
The likely result is still that the PD and its allies will win the relative majority in the Chamber which with the electoral system’s premium will give them an automatic 55% of the seats (340/630) and will take the relative majority in Senate which will not translate in a majority of the seats because the premium is give on a regional basis. The bigger choice means that an absolute majority is much more difficult today compared to 2006 or 2008 as Roberto D’Alimonte explained yesterday. He shows that the PdL cannot win a majority in the Senate (they would have to win the “red” regions of the centre which is impossible) but that a PD or even a PD-Monti alliance would not necessarily guarantee a working majority.
The uncertainty and potential instablity are the product of the electoral system and some campaign bricks dropped.
Two days ago Mario Monti declared that Chancellor Merkel would not be happy with a PD victory. She leads a centre-right party and has an election later this year so it is probable that she would prefer not to have another centre-left government among the top European players… but she is not going to say so and indeed her spokesman corrected Monti saying, not surprisingly, that the Chancellor does not take sides in other countries. Monti was left with egg on his face or worse because if there is one thing that Italians (and the rest of Europe) cannot stand, it is being told that the Germans are running the show. Today Basil Fawlty would say “don’t mention the spread” or the Deutschmark… I mean the Euro. Monti’s share of the poll was already declining, the remark has pushed it down further but it is not clear who might gain: Bersani, Berlusconi, even Grillo, or more likely, the abstentions.
Another own goal came from the only real free market economic liberal, Oscar Giannino who was forced to admit that he had lied about an MA from Chicago and indeed about his Italian laurea. It should be obvious that someone who campaigns on a platform of honesty and transparency shouldn’t fake his curriculum… but apparently not.
The electoral system sets thresholds for entry into the two houses: in the Chamber it is 4% for a single party, 10% for a coalition of two or more. This means that Giannino is very unlikely to make it (and was fairly unlikely even before his lies were published). Rivoluzione Civica, led by Sicilian prosecutor, Antonio Ingroia, also risks not making the 4% minimum. Both are trying to persuade their potential voters that supporting them is not a wasted votes while the PD and PdL argue the opposite. Berlusconi has even tried to convince wavering centre and centre-right voters that Monti’s coalition will not make 10% so that too would be a wasted vote.
In the Senate, the thresholds are doubled which means that only the four bigger parties have any serious chance of winning seats. In both houses there is plenty of scope for tactical voting with a large number of voters still undecided. There will be a lot of reflection in Italy today.
The different scenarios have been well laid by The Guardian. And La Repubblica lays out its 10 alternatives.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Friday, February 22, 2013
Italian elections… some possible outcomes
A pessimistic reader, Jurassic Dark, (one who knows Italy well) sent me these questions after my last Electionwatch blog. The last few days have not changed their relevance, if anything, they have increased the worries:
The three scary questions are the following:
They are indeed scary questions but the answers, I think are a little more reassuring though as election day draws near, my optimism is waning slightly. Still, there are cultural and structural reasons to think that the Greek Tragedy is not a model for an Italian one.
Despite the theatre of Italian politics (Berlusconi and Grillo are expert performers), much of it is just that, theatre. Berlusconi presumably does not take off his pancake makeup even when he goes to bed; Grillo doesn’t make up even when he’s on stage but stays in character on and off the stump. The others though are much more pragmatic and Bersani has said explicitly that he will mediate between Monti and Vendola.
To answer Jurassic’s question, the red line is “reform” on Monti’s side and “growth and job security” on Vendola’s, aims which are not incompatible and can be fudged. The threat of that EU troika holding court in Via Veneto will be enough to persuade both of them to come to terms. The troika itself (if it ever reached via Veneto) has far fewer reasons to “straight jacket the country into submission” as the debt is under control now just because Monti has already applied a straitjacket and Monte dei Paschi notwithstanding, the banks are still sound. This could change, though, if Berlusconi were to win or if no one were to win.
The most serious worry is not so much a red line imposed either by Monti or Vendola but one created by the numbers themselves. Monti’s share is definitely declining – Berlusconi tries to make out that he is in free fall, I doubt it but he is certainly closer to 10% than 15%. A Berlusconi victory was never a serious threat and now seems to be receding with some of the bootleg polls suggesting that he might even come third after Grillo. Certainly his rhetoric is directed more at Grillo that the others and my own very unscientific observations suggest that a lot of very unlikely people are considering voting for Grillo.
So the troika will not be on the first plane on Tuesday morning but a lot of European capitals are concerned for the moment.
The MPS and Finmecanica scandals are not closely and exclusively enough linked to single parties to make an all out war useful. MPS is on the centre-left in Siena but has connections with the PdL and other parties at the Tuscan and national levels. There are allegations that the PdL’s former coordinator, Denis Verdini was part of the power play over the bank and the bribe charges against the Finmecanica boss are also not well focussed politically. So there is unlikely to be slogging match between PD and PdL over the two organisations but there will certainly be major manoeuvres on party financing after the elections especially if there over 100 Grillo parliamentarians.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
The three scary questions are the following:
1. Is a scenario of the Italian Papandreou sitting in Chigi and the Troika sitting in the Via Veneto hotels (instead of The Grande Bretagne on Syntagma square) “straight jacketing the country into submission”... a likely possibility? and if not, why not?
2. What exactly is the red line that Monti and Vendola have drawn themselves for (not) getting into bed together?
3. Is the MPS v. Finmeccanica judicial inquiry the harbinger of a demolition derby between the Right and the Left fighting for the last bastions of liquidity for their campaign costs? What’s left after the smoking ruins?
If you dare answer, I will be reading!
They are indeed scary questions but the answers, I think are a little more reassuring though as election day draws near, my optimism is waning slightly. Still, there are cultural and structural reasons to think that the Greek Tragedy is not a model for an Italian one.
Despite the theatre of Italian politics (Berlusconi and Grillo are expert performers), much of it is just that, theatre. Berlusconi presumably does not take off his pancake makeup even when he goes to bed; Grillo doesn’t make up even when he’s on stage but stays in character on and off the stump. The others though are much more pragmatic and Bersani has said explicitly that he will mediate between Monti and Vendola.
To answer Jurassic’s question, the red line is “reform” on Monti’s side and “growth and job security” on Vendola’s, aims which are not incompatible and can be fudged. The threat of that EU troika holding court in Via Veneto will be enough to persuade both of them to come to terms. The troika itself (if it ever reached via Veneto) has far fewer reasons to “straight jacket the country into submission” as the debt is under control now just because Monti has already applied a straitjacket and Monte dei Paschi notwithstanding, the banks are still sound. This could change, though, if Berlusconi were to win or if no one were to win.
The most serious worry is not so much a red line imposed either by Monti or Vendola but one created by the numbers themselves. Monti’s share is definitely declining – Berlusconi tries to make out that he is in free fall, I doubt it but he is certainly closer to 10% than 15%. A Berlusconi victory was never a serious threat and now seems to be receding with some of the bootleg polls suggesting that he might even come third after Grillo. Certainly his rhetoric is directed more at Grillo that the others and my own very unscientific observations suggest that a lot of very unlikely people are considering voting for Grillo.
So the troika will not be on the first plane on Tuesday morning but a lot of European capitals are concerned for the moment.
The MPS and Finmecanica scandals are not closely and exclusively enough linked to single parties to make an all out war useful. MPS is on the centre-left in Siena but has connections with the PdL and other parties at the Tuscan and national levels. There are allegations that the PdL’s former coordinator, Denis Verdini was part of the power play over the bank and the bribe charges against the Finmecanica boss are also not well focussed politically. So there is unlikely to be slogging match between PD and PdL over the two organisations but there will certainly be major manoeuvres on party financing after the elections especially if there over 100 Grillo parliamentarians.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The Pope’s Voters
It was easy enough for Stalin to dismiss “the Pope’s divisions”, much more difficult for an Italian politician. There is another series of questions about the elections which is very popular – Berlusconi and the economic crisis are not the only topics in town. The Pope, present and future, has come into the Italian election campaign. Frances D’Emilio asked me and others How many votes is a photo op with the pope worth? and not surprisingly, the French Catholic paper, La Croix was also interested. These questions come from the Brazilian news magazine Veja.
The first answer is that “the Vatican” or “the Roman Catholic Church” is not a homogeneous monolith. Roughly speaking, there are three big divides – the Vatican, the Church heirarchy in Italy represented by the Conference of Italian Bishops (CEI) and the faithful. Even within those categories, there are some major cleavages as last years Vatican scandals demonstrated. So, no, “the Vatican” does not control every party in Italy. But the Church in its various forms certainly does influence most parties.
The Church has material interests in Italy in its property (despite the 19th century confiscations, it is still the biggest single landowner) so obviously is very concerned about the extent of the Monti government’s property tax, IMU. It also has material interests as a provider of health, education and some welfare all of which is funded at least partially with public, Italian, money. Then there are the human rights issues mostly to do with health, sex and reproduction. Civil unions, stem cell research, issues around the beginning and the end of life (assisted fertility and the right to die), the legality of abortion and divorce.
In terms of electoral politics, it is the CEI which plays the biggest role both in organising the vote and putting pressure on government. It was the CEI which mobilised Italian voters to boycott the 2005 referendum which would have liberalised assisted fertility and stem cell research laws. It was the CEI under Cardinal Ruini which developed the Church’s position in the tourist industry and it was the present CEI head, Angelo Bagnasco who encouraged Italians to vote for parties which would continue the reform process, a very thinly veiled endorsement for Monti.
In 1996, the Church supported Prodi; five years later Berlusconi and in 2006 and 2008, there was no clear indication. Today they support Monti.
Some are manifestly anti-clerical like the Radical Party and its successors; some are subservient or compliant like the Christian Democrats and their successors. Today, there are elements of the Church in almost all parties. Nichi Vendola, the gay champion of the radical left describes himself as a Catholic and in many ways he is as much as Monti and certainly more than Berlusconi. The PD has devout believers like their president, Rosy Bindi and I would guess that there are at least some Grillo supporters who qualify as “Catholics”.
No, not really – only in a minor media way. For a few days, the elections did not lead newspapers or television. Monti’s photo-op with the Pope will have given him a few votes, but nothing significant.
No. There is the very old joke about the foreigner who asks the Roman if he is Catholic: “of course” comes the reply, “all Italians are Catholics”. “So do you go to mass on Sundays?” asks the tourist. The Roman looks quizzically at the foreigner “Aho! Cattolico, non fanatico”. This applies to most Italians, not just Romans.
Only if the difference between Berlusconi and Bersani is so slim that Berlusconi’s defeat might be attributed to his not being able to overwhelm the airwaves while the papal news was leading.
Not so much Benedict’s (he has not made any clear choices – he has just welcomed a foreign head of government) but Bagnasco’s and the CEI’s are a factor but not a crucial one. Practicing Catholics can vote for almost any party with a clear conscience.
See above – the PD is the product of the heirs of the Italian Communist Party and the left wing of the Christian Democratic party coming together. It and before it, Prodi‘s “Olive” was the realisation of Berlinguer’s 1970s “historic compromise”.
Whoever wins a relative majority in the Chamber, nationwide (which might only be 35%) is guaranteed 55% of the deputies. Only if that national relative majority translates into a relative majority in most of the 20 regions will one coalition be able to govern. There is a good chance that the PD and its allies will win the Chamber – they might win a majority in the Senate but from the last legal opinion polls 10 days ago, it is unlikely.
Yes. The pressures first to form the coalition and secondly to implement economic reforms are so strong that a Bersani-Monti coalition could succeed. The European institutions (Commission, Council and ECB) are pushing. The markets would dump Italy and increase the spread if reforms are not introduced and domestically in Italy, there is a fear of rising unemployment and continuing recession that could persuaded the PD and the centre to bury their differences at least for a time. The alternatives are too frightening to contemplate. A Bersani-led government with a Monti minister of the economy (or similar) would give confidence to the markets and Europe.
As above. Depends on the actual numbers but the disaster of 2008 is close enough to discourage a repetition of the Mastella vote or indeed the Bertinotti vote against Prodi in 1997
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Some experts say that Vatican controls every party in Italy and persuades them on moral and political issues. Is it true?
The first answer is that “the Vatican” or “the Roman Catholic Church” is not a homogeneous monolith. Roughly speaking, there are three big divides – the Vatican, the Church heirarchy in Italy represented by the Conference of Italian Bishops (CEI) and the faithful. Even within those categories, there are some major cleavages as last years Vatican scandals demonstrated. So, no, “the Vatican” does not control every party in Italy. But the Church in its various forms certainly does influence most parties.
The Church has material interests in Italy in its property (despite the 19th century confiscations, it is still the biggest single landowner) so obviously is very concerned about the extent of the Monti government’s property tax, IMU. It also has material interests as a provider of health, education and some welfare all of which is funded at least partially with public, Italian, money. Then there are the human rights issues mostly to do with health, sex and reproduction. Civil unions, stem cell research, issues around the beginning and the end of life (assisted fertility and the right to die), the legality of abortion and divorce.
In terms of electoral politics, it is the CEI which plays the biggest role both in organising the vote and putting pressure on government. It was the CEI which mobilised Italian voters to boycott the 2005 referendum which would have liberalised assisted fertility and stem cell research laws. It was the CEI under Cardinal Ruini which developed the Church’s position in the tourist industry and it was the present CEI head, Angelo Bagnasco who encouraged Italians to vote for parties which would continue the reform process, a very thinly veiled endorsement for Monti.
In 1996, the Church supported Prodi; five years later Berlusconi and in 2006 and 2008, there was no clear indication. Today they support Monti.
Do all the Italian parties maintain a good relationship with the Catholic Church?
Some are manifestly anti-clerical like the Radical Party and its successors; some are subservient or compliant like the Christian Democrats and their successors. Today, there are elements of the Church in almost all parties. Nichi Vendola, the gay champion of the radical left describes himself as a Catholic and in many ways he is as much as Monti and certainly more than Berlusconi. The PD has devout believers like their president, Rosy Bindi and I would guess that there are at least some Grillo supporters who qualify as “Catholics”.
Could the Pope's resignation influence the Italian elections next Sunday?
No, not really – only in a minor media way. For a few days, the elections did not lead newspapers or television. Monti’s photo-op with the Pope will have given him a few votes, but nothing significant.
Do you think candidates are trying to adjust their rhetoric after the decision?
No. There is the very old joke about the foreigner who asks the Roman if he is Catholic: “of course” comes the reply, “all Italians are Catholics”. “So do you go to mass on Sundays?” asks the tourist. The Roman looks quizzically at the foreigner “Aho! Cattolico, non fanatico”. This applies to most Italians, not just Romans.
Could the resignation eventually limit the chances Silvio Berlusconi has to win the polls? Why?
Only if the difference between Berlusconi and Bersani is so slim that Berlusconi’s defeat might be attributed to his not being able to overwhelm the airwaves while the papal news was leading.
Could Benedict's clear preference for Mario Monti be an important factor in voters' minds?
Not so much Benedict’s (he has not made any clear choices – he has just welcomed a foreign head of government) but Bagnasco’s and the CEI’s are a factor but not a crucial one. Practicing Catholics can vote for almost any party with a clear conscience.
May Pier Luigi Bersani's secular kind of ethical vision affect his performance in elections?
See above – the PD is the product of the heirs of the Italian Communist Party and the left wing of the Christian Democratic party coming together. It and before it, Prodi‘s “Olive” was the realisation of Berlinguer’s 1970s “historic compromise”.
Bersani's Democratic Party might win a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies? How about the Senate?
Whoever wins a relative majority in the Chamber, nationwide (which might only be 35%) is guaranteed 55% of the deputies. Only if that national relative majority translates into a relative majority in most of the 20 regions will one coalition be able to govern. There is a good chance that the PD and its allies will win the Chamber – they might win a majority in the Senate but from the last legal opinion polls 10 days ago, it is unlikely.
An eventual coalition between Monti and Bersani, with an emphasis on economic reform, may be successful?
Yes. The pressures first to form the coalition and secondly to implement economic reforms are so strong that a Bersani-Monti coalition could succeed. The European institutions (Commission, Council and ECB) are pushing. The markets would dump Italy and increase the spread if reforms are not introduced and domestically in Italy, there is a fear of rising unemployment and continuing recession that could persuaded the PD and the centre to bury their differences at least for a time. The alternatives are too frightening to contemplate. A Bersani-led government with a Monti minister of the economy (or similar) would give confidence to the markets and Europe.
What are the chances of Bersani ending like Romano Prodi, losing a vote of confidence in the Senate and watching his government collapse?
As above. Depends on the actual numbers but the disaster of 2008 is close enough to discourage a repetition of the Mastella vote or indeed the Bertinotti vote against Prodi in 1997
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Berlusconi’s comeback, Bersani-Monti Coalition prospects and Grillo.
There are recurring questions in these elections. These were put to me by a Bulgarian journalist, Marin Dushev from Capital but many others have asked similar one:
Berlusconi's comeback is the stuff of political legend and the reason for his success is one of commonest questions asked and most difficult to answer satisfactorily.
But here are some answers. He was and still is a consumate showman; he has performed well and persuasively as a salesman, singer and politician. His message has faded as the promises have not been fulfilled but there are
still a significant number of Italians who are attracted by it. Very few of them seriously believe that their IMU property tax will be reimbursed by April (or ever). This morning Berlusconi sent a fake reimbursement form to 9 million Italians; it purports to give the bearer the right to a tax credit in a bank or post office but I doubt that many will actually try and use it. Nor do his supporters seriously believe he will build the bridge across the Straits of Messina (which he promised 12 years ago) or 4 million new jobs (it was one million 12 years).
A few of them, mostly men but even some women, like him for his lifestyle and example - the older he gets, the more hair he has, the few wrinkles and the more girls but the thick pancake makeup is ever more visible and girls
more tawdry so that message is not the main winner.
The one that succeeds is certainly not subliminal and is almost explicit. Berlusconi's Italy is one where the rules are flexible, at least of some, the furbi or smart guys. Tax rules, building rules, business rules. While Monti and Bersani are boring and threaten to make rules and apply them. Last week Berlusconi complained at prosecutors who arrested the Finmecanica chief for paying bribes. He said that in some countries bribes were an essential part of doing business. He meant India but could have been referring to some parts of Italy. Then he backtracked and said he didn't mean it… but the message was clear. Yesterday he called the judiciary "a cancer" - strong language but he had called some of them "a metastesis" in the past. He is convinced that he should have no bridle.
Three other reasons for his relative success - he is doing hugely better than his December polls of c. 15% but still way behind the 2008 poll of 38% - are Italy's solid conservative majority, Berlusconi's resources and the
division of the opposition.
For most of the 20th century and still today, the majority of Italians are tendentially conservative and only rarely have expressed a centre-left government. Berlusconi taps into the vein which is always there. In the past, he waved the "communist" frightener, today it is Vendola and the radical left.
Then he has immense media resources and uses them to great effect.
Finally, in the past and still today, the left, centre-left and centre have always been bickering and divided and in contrast, Berlusconi has been able to reunite the centre-right which without was even more fractious that the others.
As for leverage, Berlusconi needs a presence in Parliament to look after his media interest and to try and condition his trials. If there is indeed a Bersani-Monti coalition, he will have some power to condition parliamentary and government business but any serious wrecking tactics will be difficult because they would make him look like Grillo. And of course, if he loses, he will withdraw again and then the PdL will begin to disintegrate once again and they will go back to where they were before Christmas
Monti, Bersani and Vendola have been marking their territory and identifying their differences in order to increase their own share of the poll but they have been careful not to be too rude about each other so as not to make a coalition impossible after the elections. Monti has been careful to only exclude policies not people and leave the door open to a possible united programme of government.
The PD are in a similar position to the British Labour Party in the '90s. They have been in opposition for long enough to be prepared to make just about any effort not to rock the boat. Vendola for his part is a pragmatic politician who governs are difficult and diverse region, Apulia compromising where necessary (some say too much in his management of the Taranto steelworks where the environment has been sacrificed for jobs). There will be and is already opposition to some of Monti's measures from the PD's economics spokesman, Stefano Fassina but Bersani takes his strength from the primaries which elected him.
For the time being, they have certainly reached a ceiling - but we don't know exactly what it is. It could be as much as 20%. They still have no party structure and the only decisionmaking process is what Grillo himself thinks. In Parliament, they have three alternatives: they can give themselves a structure and rules and develop policies and tactics or they will do exactly what Grillo tells them to do or they will melt into the other Parliamentary groups (and Berlusconi has already hinted that he might be moving into the transfer business again). Since there could well be 100 of them, it is possible that they might do all three. The only thing that is is that initially, they will make a lot of noise in Parliament, they keep very, very close tabs on what their colleagues do and will be highly critical. The medium term, though, is impossible to predict.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Just a few months ago Silvio Berlusconi seemed to be all but a political corpse and it was believed that both he and his party were already history. Still opinion polls show that his coalition gains some considerable support of 28 % [some give the PdL even more]. How could this be explained? How much leverage will Berlusconi have in the next parliament?
Berlusconi's comeback is the stuff of political legend and the reason for his success is one of commonest questions asked and most difficult to answer satisfactorily.
But here are some answers. He was and still is a consumate showman; he has performed well and persuasively as a salesman, singer and politician. His message has faded as the promises have not been fulfilled but there are
still a significant number of Italians who are attracted by it. Very few of them seriously believe that their IMU property tax will be reimbursed by April (or ever). This morning Berlusconi sent a fake reimbursement form to 9 million Italians; it purports to give the bearer the right to a tax credit in a bank or post office but I doubt that many will actually try and use it. Nor do his supporters seriously believe he will build the bridge across the Straits of Messina (which he promised 12 years ago) or 4 million new jobs (it was one million 12 years).
A few of them, mostly men but even some women, like him for his lifestyle and example - the older he gets, the more hair he has, the few wrinkles and the more girls but the thick pancake makeup is ever more visible and girls
more tawdry so that message is not the main winner.
The one that succeeds is certainly not subliminal and is almost explicit. Berlusconi's Italy is one where the rules are flexible, at least of some, the furbi or smart guys. Tax rules, building rules, business rules. While Monti and Bersani are boring and threaten to make rules and apply them. Last week Berlusconi complained at prosecutors who arrested the Finmecanica chief for paying bribes. He said that in some countries bribes were an essential part of doing business. He meant India but could have been referring to some parts of Italy. Then he backtracked and said he didn't mean it… but the message was clear. Yesterday he called the judiciary "a cancer" - strong language but he had called some of them "a metastesis" in the past. He is convinced that he should have no bridle.
Three other reasons for his relative success - he is doing hugely better than his December polls of c. 15% but still way behind the 2008 poll of 38% - are Italy's solid conservative majority, Berlusconi's resources and the
division of the opposition.
For most of the 20th century and still today, the majority of Italians are tendentially conservative and only rarely have expressed a centre-left government. Berlusconi taps into the vein which is always there. In the past, he waved the "communist" frightener, today it is Vendola and the radical left.
Then he has immense media resources and uses them to great effect.
Finally, in the past and still today, the left, centre-left and centre have always been bickering and divided and in contrast, Berlusconi has been able to reunite the centre-right which without was even more fractious that the others.
As for leverage, Berlusconi needs a presence in Parliament to look after his media interest and to try and condition his trials. If there is indeed a Bersani-Monti coalition, he will have some power to condition parliamentary and government business but any serious wrecking tactics will be difficult because they would make him look like Grillo. And of course, if he loses, he will withdraw again and then the PdL will begin to disintegrate once again and they will go back to where they were before Christmas
How are the relations between the Democratic Party and Mario Monti's Block developing since he announced he will join politics? Will they be able to form a stable coalition?
Monti, Bersani and Vendola have been marking their territory and identifying their differences in order to increase their own share of the poll but they have been careful not to be too rude about each other so as not to make a coalition impossible after the elections. Monti has been careful to only exclude policies not people and leave the door open to a possible united programme of government.
Many say that PD's Bersani faces the risk of internal opposition from within his party if he tries to continue Monti's policies. How determined and how capable will the next Italian government to implement reforms?
The PD are in a similar position to the British Labour Party in the '90s. They have been in opposition for long enough to be prepared to make just about any effort not to rock the boat. Vendola for his part is a pragmatic politician who governs are difficult and diverse region, Apulia compromising where necessary (some say too much in his management of the Taranto steelworks where the environment has been sacrificed for jobs). There will be and is already opposition to some of Monti's measures from the PD's economics spokesman, Stefano Fassina but Bersani takes his strength from the primaries which elected him.
Has Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement reached its maximum in terms of public support? How have they developed in terms of party structure? How will they look in the next Parliament?
For the time being, they have certainly reached a ceiling - but we don't know exactly what it is. It could be as much as 20%. They still have no party structure and the only decisionmaking process is what Grillo himself thinks. In Parliament, they have three alternatives: they can give themselves a structure and rules and develop policies and tactics or they will do exactly what Grillo tells them to do or they will melt into the other Parliamentary groups (and Berlusconi has already hinted that he might be moving into the transfer business again). Since there could well be 100 of them, it is possible that they might do all three. The only thing that is is that initially, they will make a lot of noise in Parliament, they keep very, very close tabs on what their colleagues do and will be highly critical. The medium term, though, is impossible to predict.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Monday, February 18, 2013
"Girlfriend in a Coma" to be screened at the American University of Rome
the The Department of International Relations of the American University of Rome presents a special screening of “Girlfriend in a Coma"
with
Annalisa Piras (Director & Writer) and Bill Emmott (Presenter & Co-Writer)
followed by a discussion
Auriana Auditorium, Via P. Roselli, 16, 00153 Rome
Friday, February 22nd 15.00 – 17.30
As part of its mission to encourage open debate and cross cultural discussion, the American University of Rome is happy to screen Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras’ controversial documentary “Girlfriend in a Coma”. The film was due to be screened last week at Rome’s Maxxi Museum of Contemporary Art but the Museum president, Giovanna Melandri, cancelled the screening “in order not to host events with political implications”. We are fully aware that any discussion of social problems is "political" but nor the debate that has accompanied it is partisan towards or against a party or movement. Elections are a time of choice and this screening will be a moment when Italians and their friends can debate those choices.
Emmott and Piras will present their film and discuss it afterwards at the AUR Auriana Auditorium, Via Pietro Roselli 16, 00153 Rome at 15.00 on Friday 22 February. The screening is free but booking is necessary giac.22feb@aur.edu
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Winnie the Pope, The Most Revolutionary of Them All.
Even before he was elected Pope, Joseph Ratzinger never had a reputation for radical thinking or doing. In the 1960s he flirted briefly with some of the more liberal ideas that were in the air including those of Hans Küng but the phase soon passed. For the rest of his career as priest, university teacher, bishop and then pope he was steady and conservative, stolid, even. He was billed as an intellectual with a sharp mind and fine intelligence. John Allen’s biography of Cardinal Ratzinger was subtitled “the Vatican’s enforcer” and it was easy to give him nicknames like Gottweiler (a variant on “Mastino di Dio” applied to various cardinals and crusaders). But in practice he was better known for the bricks he dropped like the 2006 Regensburg address or his handling of the Holocaust denying bishop Williamson in 2010. The internal Vatican divisions which became public with the Vatileaks affair showed how incapable he was in dealing with political shenanigans of the Roman Curia. At the beginning of his reign, he said he would clean up the Church after the scandals of pedophile priests and episcopal cover-ups but the cover-ups continue and the wound is still there. Some critics went much further “utterly bereft of charm, tone-deaf and a protector of priests who abused children” wrote one American Catholic.
Benedict implicitly admitted his lack of political savoir faire in his speech at the Wednesday audience when he criticised ambitious and careerist priests and said explicitly that he was no longer up to the job.
More than God’s Mastiff, he is Winnie the Pope especially now that he has abdicated, he comes across as bumbling, well-meaning but ineffectual.
Winnie the Pooh was a “bear of little brain” because he had difficulties with the alphabet but he was extremely able to weave fruitful relationships with the other denizens of the 100 acre wood. Joseph Ratzinger in contrast, has every skill as a scribe but lacks the understanding and energy to see and then face the political difficulties inherent in the job of a Roman Pontiff (a feature which makes him all the more attactive, by the way).
This lacklustre pontificate, though, could well signal the most revolutionary moment in the history of the Church of Rome. Certainly since another humble German priest, one Martin Luther, nailed his theses to the cathedral door in 1517.
With his abdication, he has changed not just the face but the substance of the Roman Catholic church. Even though the possibility of a pope stepping down was introduced in a 1983 Canon Law reform, Benedict’s predecessor made it abundantly clear in his words and above all in his actions that the papacy was for life. John Paul’s illness and decline were extremely public; at no stage was he going to renounce his position even when he was no longer able to carry out its duties. There was a mediæval element to the final years of Karol Woytila’s pontificate which contrasted starkly with the modernity of his methods.
Woytila was the man who brought the Vatican and the papacy into the 20th century media. He made them global not just in followers and ideas which they had been since the 16th century but in image. He used the panoply of the media to project the message which in his case was a very conservative one. He was also contradictory in his political abilities; always a strong player able to control and lead the curia he lost all control by refusing to give up. At the end of his reign, paradoxically, he was completely unpolitical.
In contrast, Benedict XVI was unpolitical during his reign but his exit has made him a quintessentially political figure. By abdicating, he has broken the transcendental nature of the papacy. He is no longer God’s Vicar – instead he is a man with a job and in his case, an old and frail man who feels that his duty is to the job and the institution rather than to a unseen link with the deity based on faith. Paradoxically for a man who has written and spoken so much about Faith and who has designated this year as “Year of Faith”, he has behaved like an agnostic.
With that wall down, anything is possible.
This does not mean that there will be married priests by Christmas and women priests next year. The Vatican is a very conservative institution and all the men who will elect the new pope were appointed by two arch conservatives but Joseph Ratzinger has shown himself to be a subversive and there are certainly others out of the 117 cardinals who will assemble next month.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Friday, February 15, 2013
Who will rid me of those meddlesome magistrates?
In Henry II’s time it was much easier to deal with the other institutional powers in the country. The sovereign was indeed sovereign and a nod from him was enough to send four faithful knights off to Canterbury to kill Thomas à Becket, the “meddlesome priest” who argued that even the king was subject to law. Henry solved the political conflict but had to deal with his conscience for the rest of his life.
Italian politicians cannot solve their institutional conflicts quite so summarily but they manage to avoid the conscience hangover.
These last few days have seen a spate of arrests, indictments and verdicts involving politicians directly or people closely involved with the political parties. With just over a week to go before the elections, the predictable reaction has been that the judiciary is taking an active part in the campaign.
First the list, at least of the loudest cases.
On Tuesday, the CEO of Finmecanica, Giuseppe Orsi, one of Italy’s biggest companies, was arrested on charges of bribery and fraud in a helicopter deal with the Indian military. There are suggestions that both the previous government which appointed Orsi and Monti who confirmed him did not exercise due diligence over the publically owned business; the indictment argues that Finmecanica had developed a “culture of bribery”. Paolo Scaroni, the CEO another state owned company, SAIPEM, is being investigated for bribery in a gas deal with the Algerian government.
Yesterday, the film producer and husband of a PdL deputy, Angelo Rizzoli was arrested on charges of fraud and criminal bankruptcy. Today, the former president of Monte de’ Paschi (MPS), Giuseppe Mussari was questioned by Siena prosecutors. Mussari has been charged with various offences and the MPS has always had a close relationship with parties of the left.
Directly political, the outgoing president of the Lombardy regional government, Roberto Formigoni from Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) has finally been charged with corruption after months of investigation. He is alleged to have taken expensive holidays and other favours in return for giving public health service contracts. Lombardy is the key region for the Senate election race as well as being the biggest and richest in the country.
And then there are two convictions.
One is not a party political matter but certainly concerns the relationship between state powers. The Italian secret service chief, Nicolò Pollari has been given a 10 year sentence for his part in the kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of the Milanese imam abu Omar in 2003. The CIA operatives who carried out the kidnapping have already been convicted in absentia. Successive governments have accused the prosecutors of disclosing state secrets but so far the tussle between government and courts has not been resolved definitively.
The other conviction is much more straightforward. The former PdL minister, Rafaele Fitto was given four years for taking a €500,000 bribe from Giampaolo Angelucci who was given health service contracts and who has already been sent down for three and a half years for corruption. Fitto is top of the list of the PdL candidates for Apulia.
Fitto’s immediate reaction was that his sentencing had been timed to coincide with the elections. Silvio Berlusconi condemned all the verdicts and investigations apart from MPS. “General Pollari’s conviction is alarming; it means that Italy can’t have a secret service which defends out interests… The normal relationship between the powers has blown up. The Magistrature is ruining Italy with Jacobin behaviour”. “Jacobin” is a favorite insult implying Robespierre and the guillotine. Yesterday he even went as far as saying that since paying bribes is normal in certain parts of the world, the judges were harming Italian interests by prosecuting Italians. His Northern League ally, Roberto Maroni condemned bribe taking and this morning Berlusconi backtracked saying that he did not support breaking the law but he has already suggested that he would re-introduce immunity from prosecution for members of parliament.
The nub of the problem is that there are just so many suspected cases of misbehaviour by politicians and and potentially illegal relationships between politicians, parties and business that whenever a prosecutor indicts a suspect of a judge passes sentence, there will always be some politician who claims that he is being targeted by judges. At most, what is happening now is that some magistrates might be shifting the papers on their desks just a little more quickly or more slowly than otherwise; the media then amplify what suits their political bosses. The whole, both the substance and the way it is spun, is not very edifying.
This week’s clutch of indictments and convictions is just further evidence of how problems are allowed to fester for years until the courts are the only institution left to intervene so the clash between the courts and politicians in the executive and legislature is inevitable.
Berlusconi makes no bones about wanting to be rid of the meddlesome magistrates but many others think it.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Italian politicians cannot solve their institutional conflicts quite so summarily but they manage to avoid the conscience hangover.
These last few days have seen a spate of arrests, indictments and verdicts involving politicians directly or people closely involved with the political parties. With just over a week to go before the elections, the predictable reaction has been that the judiciary is taking an active part in the campaign.
First the list, at least of the loudest cases.
On Tuesday, the CEO of Finmecanica, Giuseppe Orsi, one of Italy’s biggest companies, was arrested on charges of bribery and fraud in a helicopter deal with the Indian military. There are suggestions that both the previous government which appointed Orsi and Monti who confirmed him did not exercise due diligence over the publically owned business; the indictment argues that Finmecanica had developed a “culture of bribery”. Paolo Scaroni, the CEO another state owned company, SAIPEM, is being investigated for bribery in a gas deal with the Algerian government.
Yesterday, the film producer and husband of a PdL deputy, Angelo Rizzoli was arrested on charges of fraud and criminal bankruptcy. Today, the former president of Monte de’ Paschi (MPS), Giuseppe Mussari was questioned by Siena prosecutors. Mussari has been charged with various offences and the MPS has always had a close relationship with parties of the left.
Directly political, the outgoing president of the Lombardy regional government, Roberto Formigoni from Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) has finally been charged with corruption after months of investigation. He is alleged to have taken expensive holidays and other favours in return for giving public health service contracts. Lombardy is the key region for the Senate election race as well as being the biggest and richest in the country.
And then there are two convictions.
One is not a party political matter but certainly concerns the relationship between state powers. The Italian secret service chief, Nicolò Pollari has been given a 10 year sentence for his part in the kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of the Milanese imam abu Omar in 2003. The CIA operatives who carried out the kidnapping have already been convicted in absentia. Successive governments have accused the prosecutors of disclosing state secrets but so far the tussle between government and courts has not been resolved definitively.
The other conviction is much more straightforward. The former PdL minister, Rafaele Fitto was given four years for taking a €500,000 bribe from Giampaolo Angelucci who was given health service contracts and who has already been sent down for three and a half years for corruption. Fitto is top of the list of the PdL candidates for Apulia.
Fitto’s immediate reaction was that his sentencing had been timed to coincide with the elections. Silvio Berlusconi condemned all the verdicts and investigations apart from MPS. “General Pollari’s conviction is alarming; it means that Italy can’t have a secret service which defends out interests… The normal relationship between the powers has blown up. The Magistrature is ruining Italy with Jacobin behaviour”. “Jacobin” is a favorite insult implying Robespierre and the guillotine. Yesterday he even went as far as saying that since paying bribes is normal in certain parts of the world, the judges were harming Italian interests by prosecuting Italians. His Northern League ally, Roberto Maroni condemned bribe taking and this morning Berlusconi backtracked saying that he did not support breaking the law but he has already suggested that he would re-introduce immunity from prosecution for members of parliament.
The nub of the problem is that there are just so many suspected cases of misbehaviour by politicians and and potentially illegal relationships between politicians, parties and business that whenever a prosecutor indicts a suspect of a judge passes sentence, there will always be some politician who claims that he is being targeted by judges. At most, what is happening now is that some magistrates might be shifting the papers on their desks just a little more quickly or more slowly than otherwise; the media then amplify what suits their political bosses. The whole, both the substance and the way it is spun, is not very edifying.
This week’s clutch of indictments and convictions is just further evidence of how problems are allowed to fester for years until the courts are the only institution left to intervene so the clash between the courts and politicians in the executive and legislature is inevitable.
Berlusconi makes no bones about wanting to be rid of the meddlesome magistrates but many others think it.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a one day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Monday, February 11, 2013
An Italian history lesson for Mali
Today we learn that the city of Gao which was supposed to have been retaken by French and Malian forces is still very much threatened by the insurgents and we have long known that the terrain in the north of the country is favourable to them.
Even before the Gao counterattack, there was been a lot of talk about how the Malian situation is going to turn into “another Afghanistan”… or not… Iraq, Libya and Syria are also invoked as possible models for understanding Mali and deciding on a course of action.
There is another precedent which should help us disentangle the Saharan conflict.
In 1911, Italy invaded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Their initial military objectives were easily won as the Turkish forces were outnumbered, outgunned and out-equipped; they could not match the Italian navy so had difficulty sending reinforcements to the small garrisons.
The war on the coast against the regular army lasted less than a year with Italy annexing the two provinces. In the east, the leader of the Senussi, first Sayid Ahmed el-Sherif and his followers fought with the Turks and when they surrendered, he took to the desert and for almost 20 years he and his successor, Omar al Mukhtar (above left, after capture) made life very difficult for the would-be imperialists.
Despite overwhelming force and technical superiority, the Italians were unable to control more than a few outposts away from the coastal strip. They had aeroplanes, motor vehicles, machine guns, artillery and radio and there were usually ten times more Italian troops than Senussi. It’s the same old story from the original guerrilleros in the Peninsular war to the Boers to the Viet Cong. An overwhelming force of well-equipped troops is no match for small numbers of less well-armed committed fighters that know their terrain and have the sympathy of the civilian population.
Mukhtar was in his 60s when he took over command of the Senussi forces and as well as being a respected Koranic scholar, he was a guerrilla leader of genius. He was only defeated after Rodolfo Graziani began to use brutal anti-civilian measures. A fence was built between Egypt and Libya to close the escape route and prevent food and supplies coming through. Much more serious was the deportation and internment. The two most eminent historians of the Italian colonial experience in Libya, Angelo Del Boca and Giorgio Rochat calculated that around 100,000 were deported from Cyrenaica and Rochat uses the word “genocide” when he calculates the death toll as between 30,000 and 70,000 from a total population of 200,000 alone before the war and before these measures.
The uprising was only quelled in 1931 when Mukhtar was wounded, captured and then hanged. The French and Malian forces cannot afford to use Graziani’s methods.
In 1934, the two provinces were united with the sparsely populated desert area of Fezzan and together became the new colony of Libya.
The terrain and balance of forces make some comparison between Cyrenaica and Mali valid. The insurgents in Mali were able to outgun the almost non-existent Malian army but when faced with French forces, they dissolved into the desert without firing a shot. This is why David Cameron reckoned that the problem could be around for “decades”.
But there are many differences between the two campaigns. For a start, the insurgents are divided in Mali with local, Tuareg, Islamic radicals fighting alongside Arabs, mostly foreign. In the early days, after the coup in April last year, they were also fighting with secular Turaregs looking for their own state. Indeed, the new state of “Azawad” was proclaimed by the Azawad National Liberation Movement for but no one recognised it. At the time, our top student was a Tuareg, born in Mali but now stateless (“I am not Malian, I am Tuareg”) who was very excited and for a time was convinced that he and his people had a country. The secular Tuaregs could well provide desert knowledge to fight their erstwhile allies. In a classroom exercise a month ago, we solved the problem by devising a new Berber state made up of parts of Algeria, Mali, Niger and Libya. Then we came back to reality.
Worse for the insurgents, they are far from having civilian support as Omar al Mukhtar certainly did. Not only is there the division between Tuareg and Arab, and Berbers further north, between foreigners and locals, between sub-Saharan Africans and the northerners, there is also a division between the radical Muslims and the much more relaxed Malians.
But if the insurgents are divided, their opponents are even more so. Until the French intervention in January, Mali’s neighbours in ECOWAS were full of words but competed with each other as to who could put procrastinate better and longer. I was in Ghana with students then and our speakers from the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were very clear they did not want to get involved in the conflict and nor did their other ECOWAS partners.
On our side of the Mediterranean, there is little more unity. Barbara Spinelli recently noted Germany’s and Italy’s pointed silence on the Malian situation . The outgoing Italian government did want to at least give logistic support to the French operation in Mali but could not persuade the parties to declare themselves. As in the Libyan crisis two years ago, Italy has been much more quiet than its interests warrant. There is an historical lesson that the Italian experience can give the world but Italy too can learn from its own experience in the recent past and decide on a position.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a two day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8-9 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Memory and forgetting on the Italian-Yugoslav border
Today is the “Day of Remembrance” (Giorno del ricordo) in which Italy remembers the Italians either killed or forced to leave Yugoslavia at the end of World War II.
The ceremony was started in 2004 with a law supported by most of the Parliament and today has become part of the calendar with an accepted narrative based on two points: the communist Yugoslav partisans killed and expelled Italians and secondly, that for decades, the Italian mainstream of history, politics and education ignored what had happened.
Both are true, but they are only part of the truth and for the wellbeing of Italy and Europe too, the rest of the story (and history) should become part of the narrative too.
Today’s commemoration is itself a sleight of hand. It comes two weeks after the “Day of Memory” (Giorno della memoria) which commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz and the victims of the Shoah. The name and date of the commemoration implicitly evoke some sort of comparison. Some on the far right make it explicit calling the foibe “an Italian Holocaust”, an obscene piggybacking of horror which was also used to justify the very institution of the “Day of Remembrance”.
The then minister for Communications, Maurizio Gasparri spoke of “millions” being killed in the foibe, an insult not only to history but to the victims of the foibe themselves and the other victims of World War II.
For the numbers, the usually accepted figure for those who left is 350,000 and for those killed and thrown into the carsic caves, the foibe, the number is usually reckoned to be between 5,000 and 15,000.
By any standards, this was a massacre and an exodus.
But… and this is where the “Day of Remembrance” is specious apart from any comparison with the Nazi exterminations,… there had been other massacres, internments and attempts to remove “alien” cultures over the previous 25 years in what the Roman empire called the “Julian March”, the north-eastern borders of Italy.
Even before Mussolini came to power, liberal Italy started to “Italianise” the areas conquered in the World War I from Trieste to Istria and then to Dalmatia all of which had been culturally, linguistically and religiously very mixed. The bureaucracy, schools, even names and road signs became Italian. When World War II began, so did the round-ups, reprisals and concentration camps. In the whole of Yugoslavia, the war was particularly brutal. In the Italian occupied areas, civilians were killed as reprisals for the deaths of Italian soldiers and thousands were put in concentration camps. The two most notorious were on the island of Rab (Arbe) and at Gonars in Friuli. The internees were not just able-bodied men who were potential partisans but old men, women and children. The monthly death rate, based on Italian figures, was around 3%. One Slovenian historian and survivor, reckoned that some 7,000 died in Rab and Gonars.
Oblivion is not healthy for society but selective memory is worse. In 1987 when I was working on a documentary on Kurt Waldheim’s war record, I got in touch with Vladko Velebit, a former Yugoslav partisan, a comrade and friend of Tito’s hoping to get evidence of Italian and German reprisals and war crimes. He admitted that there had indeed been reprisal killings but did not want to talk about them and certainly not in a controversial way. Within two years of the war ending, as a diplomat, he had negotiated treaties with Italy regulating everyday matters like coastal access and fishing. He and his Italian opposite numbers wanted to rebuild their countries and the relations between them. Forty years later, he did not want to open any can of worms. The Italians too, Communists and Christian Democrats for different reasons did not want to rake over the past though the Istrian exiles and the extreme right kept the story alive.
Today, with one Yugoslav successor state in the EU, another joining this year and the others in the queue, we are all Europeans. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission would not actually help “reconciliation” but a recognition by the Italian authorities and inclusion of the Italian crimes in the Julian March in school syllabi alongside the story of the foibe and Istrian exiles, is not only overdue but would be another small step towards European integration.
As a good European, President Napolitano will have to do better than making a feeble mention of “the more complex business of the north eastern border” in his speech today remembering the Italian victims (“and all the foibe victims” he does admit that there were others but the Yugoslavs, Russians and others are not mentioned as categories).
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a two day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8-9 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
The ceremony was started in 2004 with a law supported by most of the Parliament and today has become part of the calendar with an accepted narrative based on two points: the communist Yugoslav partisans killed and expelled Italians and secondly, that for decades, the Italian mainstream of history, politics and education ignored what had happened.
Both are true, but they are only part of the truth and for the wellbeing of Italy and Europe too, the rest of the story (and history) should become part of the narrative too.
Today’s commemoration is itself a sleight of hand. It comes two weeks after the “Day of Memory” (Giorno della memoria) which commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz and the victims of the Shoah. The name and date of the commemoration implicitly evoke some sort of comparison. Some on the far right make it explicit calling the foibe “an Italian Holocaust”, an obscene piggybacking of horror which was also used to justify the very institution of the “Day of Remembrance”.
The then minister for Communications, Maurizio Gasparri spoke of “millions” being killed in the foibe, an insult not only to history but to the victims of the foibe themselves and the other victims of World War II.
For the numbers, the usually accepted figure for those who left is 350,000 and for those killed and thrown into the carsic caves, the foibe, the number is usually reckoned to be between 5,000 and 15,000.
By any standards, this was a massacre and an exodus.
But… and this is where the “Day of Remembrance” is specious apart from any comparison with the Nazi exterminations,… there had been other massacres, internments and attempts to remove “alien” cultures over the previous 25 years in what the Roman empire called the “Julian March”, the north-eastern borders of Italy.
Even before Mussolini came to power, liberal Italy started to “Italianise” the areas conquered in the World War I from Trieste to Istria and then to Dalmatia all of which had been culturally, linguistically and religiously very mixed. The bureaucracy, schools, even names and road signs became Italian. When World War II began, so did the round-ups, reprisals and concentration camps. In the whole of Yugoslavia, the war was particularly brutal. In the Italian occupied areas, civilians were killed as reprisals for the deaths of Italian soldiers and thousands were put in concentration camps. The two most notorious were on the island of Rab (Arbe) and at Gonars in Friuli. The internees were not just able-bodied men who were potential partisans but old men, women and children. The monthly death rate, based on Italian figures, was around 3%. One Slovenian historian and survivor, reckoned that some 7,000 died in Rab and Gonars.
Oblivion is not healthy for society but selective memory is worse. In 1987 when I was working on a documentary on Kurt Waldheim’s war record, I got in touch with Vladko Velebit, a former Yugoslav partisan, a comrade and friend of Tito’s hoping to get evidence of Italian and German reprisals and war crimes. He admitted that there had indeed been reprisal killings but did not want to talk about them and certainly not in a controversial way. Within two years of the war ending, as a diplomat, he had negotiated treaties with Italy regulating everyday matters like coastal access and fishing. He and his Italian opposite numbers wanted to rebuild their countries and the relations between them. Forty years later, he did not want to open any can of worms. The Italians too, Communists and Christian Democrats for different reasons did not want to rake over the past though the Istrian exiles and the extreme right kept the story alive.
Today, with one Yugoslav successor state in the EU, another joining this year and the others in the queue, we are all Europeans. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission would not actually help “reconciliation” but a recognition by the Italian authorities and inclusion of the Italian crimes in the Julian March in school syllabi alongside the story of the foibe and Istrian exiles, is not only overdue but would be another small step towards European integration.
As a good European, President Napolitano will have to do better than making a feeble mention of “the more complex business of the north eastern border” in his speech today remembering the Italian victims (“and all the foibe victims” he does admit that there were others but the Yugoslavs, Russians and others are not mentioned as categories).
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a two day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8-9 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
Follow me on Twitter: @walstonjames
Friday, February 08, 2013
Electionwatch 11. Tactics, polls and alliances.
It is unwise to learn your part when you are already centre stage… even unwiser to change parts. Mario Monti is too old to heed Polonius’ advice to his son “to thine ownself be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man.
But he clearly is listening to Obama’s guru, David Axelrod, trying to soften his image and be a “man of the people”. This week, the austere technocrat-economist played the active grandad with children and crayons in a kindergarden and then cuddled a stray dog emulating Nixon and more recently Berlusconi – surely neither are his models?
For his part, Silvio Berlusconi sticks to his well-tried (and successful) character believing Hitler’s theory that people are more likely to believe the big lie than the small one. After promising “a million new jobs” in 2001, yesterday he promised four million but rather spoiled the effect by semi-retracting and saying it was just an “hypothesis”. The remark comes after his Sunday “shock announcement” that he would reimburse last year’s property tax, IMU, at his first cabinet meeting and cancel it in the future, at least for first houses. He has promised other “shock announcements” before the end of the campaign.
Another lie or at least a manipulation of the truth is his opinion poll that maintains he has reduced the gap between his own centre right coalition and Pierluigi’s centre left to less than 2% which if true would mean that he could win in the fortnight between now and the elections.
Other polls, less friendly to Berlusconi tell a different story. Renato Mannheimer in Corriere della Sera puts the gap at 7.5% (37.2 to 29.7 with Monti’s coalition at 12.9 and Bebbe Grillo’s Five Star Movment at 14.3) though Mannheimer’s data is inconclusive in the two key regions of Lombardy and Sicily which the centre-left must take to have a good chance of having a majority in the Senate. Ilvo Diamanti in La Repubblica is less optimistic for Bersani but still puts the gap at 5.5% (34.1 to 28.6 with Monti and Grillo both at 16).
The conclusion is that unless something extraordinary happens over the next fortnight, the centre-left will win the Chamber – their 32-35% will earn them 55% of the seats but will probably not win the Senate and so will need the support of Monti’s centre. A Monti-Bersani alliance was always on the cards but until this week, was never talked about out loud. As a minister, Bersani was far more of a reforming free marketeer than most of the centre-right; he shares much policy with Monti. Now they have taken the dangerous option of actually talking about a possible alliance.
To their left (Grillo and Ingroia) and to their right (Berlusconi) the message has always been that a vote for Monti is a vote for Vendola and vice versa. A Bersani-Monti alliance would give subtance to the message, a serious risk. The possible gain is that the policies and positions in a Bersani-Monti government are clarified and exorcised of their demonic undertones.
The PD’s economic spokesman (and probable minister), Stefano Fassina, has said that the economy is too crucial to be farmed out to a coalition ally – a personal and a party statement. But he is unlikely to prevent the formation of a government just because he is not given a cabinet post; in any case, there are ways of finessing both positions and policy. In the past, Italy had three economics ministries: budget, finance and treasury. There are still overlaps. There is space on social issues for Vendola; he would like to see gay marriage but would settle for civil unions and two days ago a senior Vatican official, Mons. Paglia opened towards the idea of legal protection for de facto couples though strenuously denied any opening towards gay marriage or even civil unions.
Will the odd couple of Monti and Bersani manage to maintain a government for more than a few months? Grillo has given them 6 months which is wishful thinking. My own guess is a little more optimistic though it too might be wishful thinking. External pressure from the markets, the ECB and the EU and internal ambition in the centre-left and fear of repeating the splits and collapse of the Prodi governments will hold the government together, maybe even for the full five years. Vendola is not Bertinotti whose ideological purity combined with internal bickerings brought down Prodi in 1999. Vendola is a pragmatic politician who has administered a big region pretty successfully on the whole and he is not going to blow his chances lightly.
On the other side, Monti is obviously not a man of the left and presumably his medium term goal is to establish a respectable Italian centre right, a 21st century Christian Democracy. At the moment there is some tension within the European Popular Party most of whose leaders have endorsed Monti but which still includes Berlusconi and his Popolo della Libertà (PdL). If the PdL does lose, then the most likely scenario is that Berlusconi finally steps down, the PdL fragments (as it was beginning to do in December before Berlusconi came back “onto the field”) with some of the rump going to Monti in time for next year’s European Parliament elections.
There is another question that seeks an answer as the campaign goes into the final straight: Grillo. The likely 100 or so grillini elected will have to learn parliamentary procedure very quickly (if I was an editor, I would assign a journalist to find out who the 100 will be and where they come from… maybe I should get a student to do it as I don’t think anyone else has done it). If they do not invent an institutional format quickly, they will dissolve quicker than the winter snows and it is not at all clear what form they might create.
As in previous election years, the American University of Rome will be hosting a two day conference covering election issues, parties, policies and personalities, with analyses from scholars, journalists and politicians. This year it will be on 8-9 March 2013 originally a month before the likely date of the elections, now two weeks after the 24-25 Feb elections. The keynote speeches will be given by Paul Ginsborg and Gianfranco Pasquino.
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