Referendum of June the 21st, what is it for?

Have you ever supposed you can change something with your vote? Have you ever thought to send Berlusconi away crossing on the PD symbol? Have you ever fantasized about founding a party and winnng elections?
You can’t.
And you don’t need any degree in jurisprudence to understand it, as many billionaires don’t need any degree in economy to make money. That’s because the things you need to know (to hold out in the world) are not explained at school. Simply.
It’s a common persuasion that on June the 21st italians will be gathered to express their idea about three electoral questions. I think no-one will express anything on June the 21st. First of all because even a monkey knows when to respond ‘yes’ or ‘not’, and I’d like to think we’re not so uncivilized as the apes. Then because it’s hard quorum will be reached.

If you even don’t know which are the questions… they are three and they’re are printed on paper coloured as the national flag:

1. green paper: Majority bonus to the most voted list at the Chamber of Deputies,
2. white paper: Majority bonus to the most voted list at the Senate,
3. red paper: Repeal of multiple candidacies.

So, if the ‘NOs’ win nothing will change, and the mechanism for seats allocation will be the same of the past elections. If the ‘YES’ win, the rules will change but practically nothing will change too.

If YES win, then how the rules will change?
Now the majority bonus is assigned to the ‘list’ or to the ‘coalition of lists’ that gains more seats than the others. That’s why big parties like Berlusconi’s PDL and Franceschini’s PD support the YES and small parties like Bossi’s Lega Nord, Casini’s UDC and Di Pietro’s IdV support the NO. The ideal aim of this change is to force the political groups to merge before the elections building big lists and avoiding an excessive fragmentation in favour of a two-party system.
Concerning the third question, the change should help removing the bad habit of multiple candidacies. Now an important politician can stand as a candidate in all the constituencies, once he’s elected he can choose the second in every constituency, giving origin to the habit of subjection.

If you read on the referendumelettorale.org they say:

The political components of each list won’t ask any right to autonomy since they were elected by people in a single list. No one will claim a part of the consensus. It will be very hard to explain to the people scratches in the majority. The elimination of quarrelsome coalitions will change the actual system. Instead of fragmentation, negotiations and split threats, the new system will impose simplification keeping the right of being represented of the list that overcome the threshold (4% at the Chamber of Deputies and 8% at the Senate, T/N).

The first topic PDL talked about the day after its founding was the need of reaching the 50,1%. That would be the only way to emancipate itself from Lega Nord. In any case, also if PDL won’t reach the absolute majority it could easily gain the majority bonus at the Chamber of Deputies. It could have only some problem at the Senate, since Lega Nord is very strong just in some regions, like Lombardy and Veneto. So whatever will be the referendum result, not much will change. And last but not least, even if it’s true that in the case YES will win and in the further elections we will have less lists, it’s not certain that after the election ‘it will be very hard to explain to the people scratches in the majority‘. Do you think our politicians, that will be ever the same, would feel ashamed of creating waves inside the parliement?

Umberto M. Meotto

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