Wednesday 24 April 2013

Italy Precipitating Towards a General Election

The "vecchio, glorioso comunista"  (88) who admonished us all in mouth-filling Togliatti-speak while swearing at the Italian Parliament has now told the media to be quiet and do its bit for the stitch-up under Silvio Berlusconi's right-hand-man's nephew -  or he will resign. 

So it's as we were, really.  No government -  because Bersani's deputy is no more use than Bersani in delivering a united governing party; and  no Head of State because he's on the brink of resignation twenty-four hours into a seven year mandate he is wholly unequipped to fulfil; and with the outgoing prime minister, Mario Monti, having just altered the wording of his final decree to embed irreversibly a property tax demanded by the European Union to bring Italy into line with pan-eurozone  (and EU) tax measures, despite the abolition of taxes on wealth, particularly main residence wealth, being the cornerstone of Berlusconi's policies.

The newly-elected governor of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia  (Renzi-party) has arrived in Rome to confront the Democratic Party with their refusal to vote for Rodota' as President even as they agreed to vote for Berlusconi in government (or at least part of the Party did).

We are all going to the seaside shortly, until September, so the general election will have to be in October.  That will coincide nicely with general elections in Germany.    

2 comments:

Sackerson said...

I thought you didn't get to choose your politicians any more. Aren't they simply assigned to you by the Troika?

hatfield girl said...

You're right S, politicians are chosen by the party leaders, we can only vote for Party lists - except for the 5 Stars; we choose those on line and mandate them on line too, from time to time, within general policy approaches agreed at local meet-ups and discussed and voted on-line. That's what's unleashed all this viciousness -nearly 170 MPs for direct democracy - the party system is ready to kill.

Not sure it's about the Troika.