Once upon a time, there was Imperial Rome. Augustus, Vespasian, Marcus Aurelius, emperors by divine right who ruled until death. Then came the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the French Revolution, the Russian one, the twenty years of Mussolini and parliamentary democracy. Today, after a couple of millennium of history and of political evolution, we have arrived at the life-serving Governors by party-right. It’s a matter of individuals who, for reasons unknown to the citizens, but known to the party secretaries, manage a region for 15 to 20 years even though that is forbidden by Italian law. Article 2 of the State law 165/2004 prevents a President of a Region from putting himself forward as a candidate after two consecutive terms of office: “expectation of the non-immediate re-eligibility at the end of the second consecutive mandate of the President of the Regional Junta elected by direct universal suffrage, on the basis of related regional regulations”. The emeritus president of the Constitutional Court, Valerio Onida reaffirmed this in an interview. The spirit of the law is simple: anyone who gets comfortable on an armchair for too long, manages it like a centre of power. This gives rise to a necessary change. Formigoni is getting near having reigned for 20 years, Errani for 15 years. A bipartisan agreement between Bersani (D'Alema’s spokesperson) and Berlusconi. One Region for you, one for me. The candidates proposed by the PDL and the PDminusL as adversaries to the Eternal Governors are ‘sparring partners’, put up for the sake of appearances. Penati in Lombardy and thing-a-me-bob (I swear I don’t even remember his name) in Emilia Romagna were throw-away containers. Lombardy and Emilia Romagna were used as exchange merchandise between the PDL and the PDminusL without giving a toss for the law and for respect of the citizens. The whole thing was carried out with the most complete pre-election “omertà”: “I’ll stay silent about an out-of-date-governor if you keep silent on mine.” Before the elections I wrote that I would appeal if the duo erraniformigoni got elected. The law is equal for everyone, apart from for the PDL and the PDminusL. United in a mess-up.