Thursday 28 February 2013

The Dead Who Speak

The brush-off to Bersani and his faction of the Democratic Party by the Five Star Movement's Beppe Grillo is being widely and wildly misrepresented in the media.  Grillo's real politik assessment of Bersani's position - loser of the general election who should by now have resigned and cleared at least one path to reaching agreement for installing a government - is a total no-no for  some parts of the proto-communist Democratic Party leadership but recognised as required by another, ie the faction itself has now split.  Split on the best course to follow to instal an administration acceptable to the Italian  euro-communists, still so very much alive and well, if denied their victory by Bersani's political incompetence and personal lack of leadership qualities.

Grillo's assessment of Bersani is quite correct.  He may have had himself "coronated" (to borrow the word used so often of Gordon Brown's ill-fated seizure of the Labour Party) but  he's lost the general election, and for very much the same reasons as did Brown when he was finally forced to face the electorate.  The Democratic Party is learning the bitter lesson that fake democratic procedures result in exposure when put to the test by the real thing. 

Again with parallels to what happened to Brown, Party loyalty almost delivered and there can be heard the  obsessive muttering of "It isn't over yet."  But it is over, for Bersani and his bullies, and all they are doing is damaging the Party.  Berlusconi is being given the opportunity to look positively statesmanlike and the electorate of the largest single party in the Chamber of Deputies is being villified and insulted (many of us for the second time since the Democratic primaries last November by these bully boys.)

Yes, many of the Five Star voters are Democrat voters if the Party is democratically led, and many of us will want to offer confidence to the Democrats when Bersani gives up the Party leadership.  But the desperate re-affirmations by his cronies that he is 'the Candidate Premier' only underline the nonsense that he should stay after losing.  There's no such thing as a candidate premier outside the horrors of last century's Eastern Europe.  In Italy's democracy the Head of State invites the person most likely to command both Houses on the advice of the Speakers of those Houses and after consulting the Parties themselves.  The Party cannot impose that choice if it does not coincide with electoral reality.  In this we are not the Labour party with its anti-democratic Rule Book of central control.

Bersani must step down in the end.  And the Democratic Party and its media needs to display a very different attitude to those who defeated it.  Or we may decide we prefer a movement where we can make our voices and choices heard online.   

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I look at the appalling alternatives in Italy and think - is it any better here in the UK?

It we laugh at Italy, we laugh at ourselves.

hatfield girl said...

Things just got worse Anon, with Naples magistrates opening an enquiry into Berlusca bringing an MP elected by a leftist party over to him in a series of votes (this was when Silvio was having a tricky legal moment and needed lots of votes in the Parliament to keep him safe). That Honourable Member alone is said to have cost him 3 million euros. Usual stuff, corruption, various electoral improprieties...

It is being suggested that Silvio is about to be cut off by various legal problems from any further parliamentary business so that, once Bersani has been persuaded to step down too, the business of forming post-electoral coalitions can be undertaken freely.

Antisthenes said...

I follow your blogs avidly even if my understanding of Italian politics can be written on the back of a postage stamp. Maybe having followed you my understanding has improved quite a bit. Your observations and comments meet very much with my approval however I am a little saddened that you appear to have left wing leanings as I am decidedly a right wing libertarian.

hatfield girl said...

A, you will be calling Nutella left-wing next!

It's very good of you to read Angels with interest.

David said...

A related song to the outcome of the elections in Italy – ‘Talking Beppe Grillo & The Five Stars Movement’ by Topical Songwriter Michel Montecrossa
(song and music video on the website http://www.MichelMontecrossa.com )
Michel Montecrossa says about ‘Talking Beppe Grillo & The Five Stars Movement’:
“Beppe Grillo in Italy stands with his ‘Five Stars Movement – Movimento 5 Stelle’ for the people and a non-criminal banka & polito world.
Beppe Grillo is not alone with this aspiration nor is Italy the only country demanding a new level of political and economic ethics. All countries in Europe and all people of the European Union want that. European politicians must become true statesmen at the service of the people, bankas must become real value bankers at the service of the people, rich speculators must develop a social conscience, must be ready to share with the people and to pay higher taxes. Banka-gangstas shall get jail instead of bail. The living, housing, food and energy costs for the people must be radically lowered so that European workers can adjust their wages to the global reality without losing their jobs and their civilised living standard.
On this basis Europe’s working hand will stay competitive in the global economic scene and the well-being of the young will have top priority by giving free education and quality jobs instead of outsourcing. The securing of pensions and health-care then will equally have top priority to guaranty peace and human dignity.
For all this and more I sing my New-Topical-Song ‘Talking Beppe Grillo & The Five Stars Movement’.”