According to polls ahead of the March 4 elections, with Italy split into three approximately equal parts and the majority bonus cancelled, it will not be possible for anyone to form a stable government independently. As a result, three scenarios are possible.
The parliamentary elections to be held in Italy on March 4, 2018 reveal a country, which is split into three roughly equal parts. A third of voters supports the right-wing coalition led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, another third – left-centrists led by another former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, and yet another one supports the non-conformist Five Star Movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo and now headed by Luigi Di Maio. In the previous elections of 2013 all of them scored almost the same number of votes (in the range of 25-29%), and now the situation is being reproduced. At the same time, the supporters of all three forces oppose one another, and this is something by far exceeding the usual political struggle. Thus, the socio-political unity in Italy is virtually nonexistent, and instead of one country, we actually see three different civil nations which hate one another (and this is not exaggeration).
The peculiarity of these elections is connected with the new Italian electoral law of 2017 (the so-called Rosatellum law) with abolished the “majority bonus system,” when the party (or coalition) with the largest number of votes automatically receives half of the seats in parliament and can form the government without impediment. It should be noted that the “majority bonus system” causes controversial associations in the Italian electoral history. In the 20th century, it was introduced twice in the national parliamentary elections: first in 1923 in order to ensure the domination of Benito Mussolini’s Fascists in the parliament, and then in 1953 – with the transparent goal of preventing Communists from taking office. Therefore, the election law of 1953 received the very characteristic name legge truffa (“scam law”). After that, the “majority bonus system” in Italy was abandoned for a long time.
The idea was again revoked in the early 21st century. In order to avoid a stalemate, when right and left coalitions garnered around the same number of votes, and none could gain the necessary majority in parliament, the “majority bonus system” was reintroduced in 2005 for the first time since 1953. But the attitude of the public opinion to it remained controversial. Almost immediately, the new law of 2005 was called Porcellum (with quite transparent associations, porco in Italian meaning “pig”). This law gave the party (or coalition), which received the largest number of votes, half of the seats in parliament. Several parliamentary elections were held according to the norms of Porcellum, and all of them were scandalous.
In the 2006 elections, the votes were divided almost equally. In the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of parliament), Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition received 49.81% of votes, and the centre-right coalition of Silvio Berlusconi – 49.74%. So the difference was only 0.07%, but thanks to the “piggish” Porcellum, Prodi got 63 seats more in the Chamber of Deputies, than Berlusconi (340 seats against 277).
The same situation, but even more scandalous, was repeated during the 2013 elections. Then, the centre-left coalition gained 29.55%, and Berlusconi's right-wingers – 29.18%. The difference was again less than one percent – 0.37%. But Porcellum again came into effect, and the left-centrists got 340 seats in the Chamber of Deputies in comparison with 124 seats for Berlusconi. So, the winner got 20% seats more with a difference of 0.37%. In 2006, the leftists were at least close to 50% following the results of the elections, now they did not come close to this result, but still got their own.
This situation caused considerable protests in the country, and in 2014, the Italian Constitutional Court recognized that Porcellum was not in compliance with the Constitution. But in 2015, a new electoral law was adopted, which received the pretentious title of Italicum (implying the “revival” of Italy, its democracy, etc.). It set the threshold for the “majority bonus system” of 40% of the votes for the winning coalition, but did not cancel this award at all. However, in February 2017, the Constitutional Court recognized this law as also unconstitutional. As a result, in November 2017 a new Rosatellum electoral law was adopted, which finally abolished the bonus award.
The history of the formation of the three leading political forces in Italy is very indicative. Previously, in the context of the Cold War, the main law of the Italian political system was directed at preventing election victory of the very strong Italian Communist Party, perhaps the most powerful and popular Communist force in all of the Western countries. For this purpose in late 1940s – early 1950s, falsifications were used in the votes counting, along with the abovementioned legge truffa of 1953, ideologically blurred governmental coalitions “all against the Communists,” blackmail of small parties in the distribution of ministerial portfolios, and, perhaps most importantly, rampant corruption at the state level, and merging of the state apparatus with the mafia.
The entire system collapsed with a great scandal in 1992, when the Soviet Union broke up, and the Italian Communists were no longer dangerous (most of them immediately switched camps). After the “Clean Hands” anti-mafia investigation, virtually all of Italy’s old systemic parties (including the main party: Christian Democrats) lost credibility and ceased to exist.
The newly formed political forces filled the vacuum. First of all, it is the “Forward, Italy!” (Forza Italia) party, created by a big businessman Silvio Berlusconi and named after the football fans’ call. Its social base is, first of all, the small and medium business of the country (very developed in Italy, which is considerably ahead of other Western European countries in terms of the number of small enterprises). One the two new forces which became Berlusconi’s allies is the regionalist Lega Nord party. The north of Italy is traditionally more developed and more modernized socially than the south of the country, so discontent with the inefficient state bureaucracy and its merging with the southern mafia grew in the north. The slogan “Enough to feed the South,” perhaps, precisely characterizes the ideology of Lega Nord. It also actively opposes migrants from Africa, Albania, Romania and Poland. Berlusconi’s other ally was the semi-fascist National Alliance party, popular mainly in the south, which, however, distanced itself from its neo-fascist past. Both the Lega Nord and the political heir of the National Alliance, the Brothers of Italy party, are Berlusconi’s allies in the March 4 elections.
Opponents of Berlusconi’s coalition since the 1990s are “readjusted” former communists who declared themselves a “systemic left party,” as well as fragments of former Christian democrats and other small parties. Their social base is first of all salary-earning workers, migrants with Italian citizenship, as well as intellectuals and university professors, who irrationally and fiercely hate Berlusconi.
For twenty years, the political struggle in Italy was between these two coalitions, and their representatives alternately headed the government. But the economic crisis of 2008-2009 and the obvious mistakes and bureaucratization of the European Union officials in Brussels, whose economic decisions were increasingly unpopular among the Italians, the rise in prices after the introduction of the euro – all this led to a civil protest against the authorities, which began to develop rather rapidly. In Italy, it came to be led by comedian Beppe Grillo, who created the non-conformist Five Stars Movement, whose main slogan was the rude cry Vaffanculo, which means “go to Putney,” both left and right together. This social anarchist protest against everything quickly gained great popularity in Italy. As a result, Grillo’s movement won 25% of the vote in the 2013 elections and was quite a bit behind the coalitions of the right and the left, which, as was mentioned above, gained 29%. Italy was clearly split into three parts.
And now, according to polls ahead of the March 4 elections, with Italy split into three approximately equal parts and the majority bonus cancelled, it will not be possible for anyone to form a stable government independently. As a result, three scenarios are possible. First, an artificial, both ideologically and socially, “grand coalition” of the right and the left is formed (the Five Star Movement basically rejects any coalitions and hoping for an absolute victory). But a significant number of voters, both right and left, are against a grand coalition because of strong polarization. Second, blackmail of small parties can begin with shuttling of individual legislators between factions and their votes being “bought up”. Thus, Italy would turn into another Ukraine. Finally, because of the stalemate, new elections will be announced right away (this happened in Greece several years ago), and we will see a new stage in the political struggle until someone can win an absolute victory.
