Democracy in Italy doesn’t exist. There’s room for doubt that it ever existed, but at least there was a time when appearances were upheld. A few referenda were respected, like the ones on divorce and abortion. A few trials against people like Andreotti and Craxi, the former convicted for mafia and “timed out”, the latter convicted and then becoming a fugitive. The citizens voted for a candidate and they believed that with their choice they were influencing the outcomes for the country. The parties were numerous and therefore difficult to control. Gelli advocated having just two parties, the one the mirror image of the other, with agreements between the two. It’s written in black on white in his “Piano di Rinascita Democratica” {Plan for Democratic Rebirth}. It’s what has come to pass with the PDL and the PDminusL, in apparent disagreement on everything, but in agreement on the public financing of parties, on the TAV, nuclear power stations, parliamentary immunity, financing to the newspapers, on the Fiscal Shield, the conflict of interests, the privatisation of water, and NATURALLY on the current electoral law that obliges you to vote with an X for a hot shit or for one a bit tepid.
The national elections are unconstitutional; Calderoli’s “legge porcata” {filthy law} is unconstitutional, but no party has lifted a finger to change it. The will of 359,000 Italians who have signed for a Clean Parliament is ignored. Perhaps we need a Day of Anger even in Italy to get Schifani and the party leaders to shift their arses?
The PDL and the PDminusL apparently have a weak point: the regional and local elections in the big cities where it’s possible to vote for the candidate. How can you control the vote without changing the law? Simple. You make an agreement under the table. A region for you, a region for me. A strong candidate against a weak candidate. Emilia Romagna to the PDminusL, Lombardy to the PDL. Both Errani and Formigoni are outlaws for having gone over the two consecutive terms of office, but neither of the two main parties has uttered a whisper. In order to make the PDminusL candidate win in Turin they put forward Buttiglione as a candidate (and not even cardinal Bertone would have voted for him) against Chiamparino and today a guy called Coppola against Fassino who MUST win. It’s an exchange vote, region by region, town by town. In theory they are decisive elections. If the PDminusL had wanted to win in Milan against Ms Moratti, they wouldn’t have presented as candidates at the Primaries the lawyer “Pisapia-portalovia” (Pisapia-take-him-away) and Boeri, the architect who worked with Ligresti.
The parties have shared out Italy, apart from perhaps the towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. A further piece of evidence was the ferocious reaction of the PDminusL against the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} after the failure of Bresso to get elected in Piedmont where the throw-away candidate Cota actually won. Cacciari couldn’t stop himself: “It was a shock, especially in Piedmont – and to whom do we have to say thanks for this masterpiece? To those dick-head “grillini” … I would set fire to them, they are wretches. Do they realise what they have done? We know what we have done. We have ruined your game of mess-ups. The party is over dear “pdieliini e pidimenoellini” {PDL and PDminusL guys}. You’ll have to get used to it. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.