Bersani Told to Go Home But He Still Doesn't Understand He Lost the Election

Comrade Bersani has been told by the Head of State that as his proposals for government are not able to command a majority in the Parliament, even on paper, he can't be prime minister.  The prime minister remains Mario Monti and the Monti administration remains in office.  The President of Italy has stated that he will personally begin consultations to put together a post-Monti administration.  Neither the Bersani faction of the Democratic Party nor Bersani himself will accept this  and have declared that the Leader will continue in his negotiations for a majority in both Houses of the Italian Parliament.

Bersani doesn't seem to have a proper grasp on how to put together a coalition.  It is not done by barking orders at the largest single Party represented in the Lower House, and holding the vital votes in the Upper House, to get back in line or we'll have to have another election.  We are quite willing to have another election  - after the new President has been elected; the Bersani Democratic faction's attempts to portray the 5 Star Movement as disaffected lefties has just been time-wasting but as the new elections cannot be until June at the earliest  (what with one thing and another) it doesn't really matter.  Now they understand,  5 Stars is not just an outbreak of indiscipline from the Democrat Party line.  Nor is it made up of political innocents or fools.  We have an agenda, oh yes.

We were told in a press conference an hour ago that to form a coalition Bersani 'would have had to accept proposals and conditions unacceptable to him.'  Poor lamb;  he told us what we had to agree to, perfectly plainly.  He even wrote it all down for us in eight points but we kept changing them,  and requiring so much more - like not financing his party out of tax-payers' money (that was one of the unacceptable conditions).  He's demanding to meet Parliament, so clearly he's failed to grasp as well that Italy actually  has got a government (admittedly not very popular but wholly efficient) and the President hasn't accepted Monti's resignation (even though he's had it since January) so there isn't a vacancy.

Berlusca's condition for support was himself as the next president of Italy or, if that were thought a touch risque' then his principal political advisor, Gianni Letta, would do it.  The Northern Leagues want all taxes raised in northern Italy spent in northern Italy and an autonomous North.  You can see that Napolitano had a point, telling Bersani to go home;  and it took over an hour to get Bersani out of the Quirinale.