Experts comment on the Italian elections
26 February 2013
Professor Anna Bull and Dr Felia Allum were recently interviewed live by BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio 4 commenting on Italy’s political elections, held on 24 and 25 February 2013.
Professor Anna Bull was yesterday interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme The World Tonight (listen again from 29 min 46 sec).
Dr Felia Allum was interviewed today on BBC Radio Bristol as part of the John Darvall show (listen again from 1 hour 16 min 6 sec).
Italy in Greece's footsteps? Anti-politics wins the day in Italian elections
The results have revealed a deep mood of dissatisfaction with the Monti government and the parties that supported him between November 2011 and December 2013. The only partial exception is Silvio Berlusconi’s party, which pulled the plug on Monti’s government and during the electoral campaign behaved as if it had never supported it in the first place, which helped Berlusconi recover support among the electorate.
The losers are Monti’s new party (‘Civic List for Monti’), which has failed to become a pivot in any new government coalition, as the leader had anticipated, and the Democratic Party, the main party of the centre-left coalition, which failed to meet expectations (not least its own). The party fell well short of a majority in the Senate and won by a whisker in the Lower House, where it enjoys a majority thanks to the electoral system currently in place, which attributes a bonus number of seats to the party or coalition able to secure the highest number of votes.
The real winner is the 5 Stars Movement, a new party led by former comedian Beppe Grillo, which has been best able to intercept the mood of anti-politics prevalent in the country and has become the single largest party in the Chamber of Deputies. It is difficult to imagine this protest party agreeing to take part in a coalition government.
So difficult times are ahead for Italy and for the EU. Ironically, the best scenario in terms of guaranteeing some degree of stability to the country would be a new ‘Monti’ type coalition, comprising Berlusconi’s party, the Democratic Party and Monti’s party. But would these parties agree to collaborate after an acrimonious and bitter political campaign? The alternative would have to be calling new elections in the very near future.
— by Professor Anna Bull
