The Right People
As the director of Il Giornale Mario Giordano said “It’s true that before now Forza Italia and AN existed, it’s true that Berlusconi governed for so long, but this is the first time all moderate italians are represented together in a force that has the majority in the country”.
The weekend of the 27-29th of march the PDL party (Il Popolo della Libertà, “People of Freedom” in english) hold in Rome its first plenary congress. During the previous week the last congress of Alleanza Nazionale ratified its dissolution in order to merge into the new political force. Now the PDL is the biggest centre-right Italian political party. At the last elections, in april 2008, the coalition driven by Berlusconi (that includes among other parties the federalist Lega Nord, aka Northern League) gained about 46.8%. The target of the new centre-right party is to reach 51% and give more powers to the premier.
Positive Comments
Of course comments posted by readers on right wing newspapers online are very positive. Many say that finally they have an unanimous voice speaking the words of people who work and don’t complain, a voice made by the ones that are sick of all the politicians that want only to show their superiority. Northern League electors see the founding of PDL as a turning point for a resolution on federalism, while the most worried by the actual economic impasse hope a new party, full of projects for everyone, will help to overcome this moment of crisis. Since it’s 15 years the Premier’s activity goes in this direction both politicians and electors see in these days the realization of a certain type of Italy, the one already foreseen in the past Berlusconi governments. Leaving out some ecstatic or worshipping comments that say Silvio is like Cavour, De Gasperi or “a miracle”… many Forza Italia supporters claim the PDL birth is a crucial point of italian history, and the centre-right politics a model of good government for citizens.
Negative Comments
Of course comments posted by readers on left wing newspapers online are very negative. Many oppositors claim centre-right electors are TV slaves (Berlusconi owns 3 major television channels) while free thinkers are not driven by the hands of any puppeteer. Left people assume to be wiser and they’re astonished that italians vote for Silvio. They say this man has to be stopped, he’s just an egocentric, arrogant populist and dishonest. These people advocate that in PD (Democratic Party) people discuss while in PDL people obey. On the opposite centre-right electors very often repeat a similar adage: “Communists! Ah, if the party tells them to vote for the goat, they will vote for the goat”. The freedom centre-right speaks about is not for the people but for Berlusconi, here -they guess- we risk a totalitarian drift. Less words and more reforms are needed!
Who is without sin cast the first stone
No one is perfect. One of the most peculiar italian sins is magnaselfishness (quoting R. Buckminster Fuller‘s Grunch of Giants). It seems everyone’s primary impetus is to overtake or bypass one another. Everyone has to prove he/she is slier than the neighbour. I’ve traveled in many countries but only in Italy I’ve seen among the common people all these longing of competition and pretention of victory above the others. For this reason in my opinion we need:
1) less italocentrism and a true opening to the world (very often we loose many important news about our planet because we’re too much concerned with Italian starlets’ fable or, as in this case, cut-and-dried politic gambits);
2) to stop making this man a laughing stock! (almost all italian newspapers have fun making a mockery of president Berlusconi, I think that’s not good for our country because in this way we give a moron picture of ourselves and above all we tacitly give the international press the permission to criticize and ridicule our politics);
3) to remember that unfortunately all the big parties (anywhere!) have to collate many schools of thought (it was true for the Democratic Party, it will be true for the People of Freedom too, as the president of Veneto region Giancarlo Galan reminded during the three days congress). But is this a good or a bad news?
Umberto M. Meotto
I enjoyed this thoughtful post. I think you are quite right about not encouraging the portrayal of your country’s leader as a buffoon. That was a mistake the US made much to its detriment regarding George W. Bush – our media actually encouraged the rest of the world to jeer at the President, failing to understand that it would inevitably lead to a lack of respect for the US as a nation. Whether you like it or not, leaders are the living symbol of a nation to the rest of the world.
As for the coalescence of PDL, if we lay ideology aside for a moment, this is a development that could have positive results for Italy’s government in terms of its stability and effectiveness. By my count Italy has over 30 parties, and that numberrises to over 80 if you include regional parties. This cannot help but be confusing to voters who do not spend all their time following politics. The fragmentation of seats in the Legislature among many parties makes it difficult to have a stable governing coalition. The development of PD and PDL as major parties, if followed by the coalescence of the remaining parties into 5 or 6 minor parties, could lead to a much more stable and effective government. Look at Germany, for example, which has two major parties and essentially two minor parties.
Thank You very much! You catched exactly what I was trying to say. At the end our leaders are the public faces of our country: having a little respect for them means showing the world… what? that we’re shrewder then them? that also other countries’ journalists can make fun of them? Someone in our country thinks so. Someone thinks it’s correct to show the world our leaders are clowns also if 50% of italians or americans (who voted) voted for them. I don’t like this way of behaving, indipendently if the subject is Prodi or Berlusconi, Clinton, Bush or Obama.
Concerning the second point You touched I’m afraid in Italy we’ll never have true large coalitions but large parties coalitions. Take for example what is happening in these days: for the umpteenth time we’ll be called for a referendum about our electoral system. No one was speaking about that until last week: then someone suggested to combine the said referendum the same day of European Elections to save money for the Abruzzo earthquake people.
Lega Nord party opposed, maybe because they knew many people could vote against the present law (written by the Lega Nord minister Calderoli). It’s reported that if PDL and Lega Nord didn’t find an agreement today Berlusconi’s government could fall. Lega Nord is not in the PDL coalition and with its 10% of votes, in this occasion, held the reins of the country.
The fact no one was speaking about this until last week means the politicians like the status quo, in Italy referendum are won motivating people not to go voting: it’s better a majority bonus for a list of parties than for a list. So it’s better to vote for this referendum not in concurrence with something important like European elections, where all italians go voting.
http://italianopinionist.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/referendum-vs-earthquake-much-ado-about-nothing/
[...] April 17, 2009 by italianopinionist Just yesterday evening I was writing the following sentences, in response to a comment on the post “The Right People“: [...]