Elections: the right wing won but we all lost in a deeper way

In Italy PDL and Lega Nord won both EU elections and local ones (provinces and districts). All over Europe the right wing won in the majority of the countries. But which is the real result of these past elections? The average number of people who voted all over Europe reached its lowest value: 43,24%. And, independently of what parties won, this is a bad defeat for Europe and its citizens. Some doubts about Europe identity are maybe due. European citizens don’t care too much about their representatives in the EU Parliament… so what does EU parliament stand for.? Which is its value? It is not valuable enough to spend some minutes or even an hour of time according to 57% of European citizens. And it is a sad defeat since Europe could represent instead something real important in a period of crisis and in the era of globalization. With the economic crisis protectionism like behaviours come to the surface. Instead of finding a way to go behind the present situation together European countries seems more likely to think each one for itself in order to save itself. Or maybe this is the attitude of our politicians… I can’t speak for all European countries but as far as Italy is concerned the situation fits perfectly. In Italy the flow of people to the polls was higher (67%) than in other countries (France 40,5%, Germany 42,2%). A signal of more attention to civic rights and duties? The hope remains but also the hypothesis that the higher number is just the result of the coincidence with local elections seems quite probable. And the hypothesis that higher number of voters doesn’t equal higher interest for EU Parliament or higher civic education is in some way confirmed by two facts/considerations:

1) in the days before elections the references to programs related to EU matters where quite few. So I hardly can understand the real motivations behind a vote… or maybe it can be reduced just to a matter of Italian politics. The majority of people voted the right or left wing according to its preference with no regard for specific programs and intentions about EU. EU elections as local elections are valuable just thanks to the political signal they can convey: a sparkling victory of PDL could have represented a strong confirmation for actual government, a good perfomance of PD could have represented the desire of people for a change in the government. No clamorous result was obtained both by PDL and PD: and we are discussing now if the fact that Berlusconi’s party reached a result 2% below previous elections is significant or not. And also we debate about possible causes of such lowering in the percentage of PDL voters such as Veronica Lario’s claim for divorce or (sadly to say) the fact football player Kakà was sold by Berlusoni’s football team. Where is a strong feeling of civic rights to express our opinion and votes by ourselves if similar causes can influence us and, moreover, if we vote just a party without even knowing its specific intentions about the issue we are going to vote?

2) The only party who reach a result quite significant if compared to previous elections was Lega Nord. And now we are assisting to the consequences of that as another signal of the complete lack of political awareness in citizens and will of educate in politicians. In coincidence with second counts for local elections there will be the referendum, strongly opposed by Lega Nord since a positive result would bring to a bipolarism with no place for small parties. And, as a curious coincidence, we can read today that Lega Nord will support PDL candidates in districts where second counts are to be hold. Meanwhile Berlusconi is making known he will not support the referendum. So, after approving it, our government will not sustain a referendum which will cost a lot of money, moreover thanks to the fact it wasn’t scheduled in coincidence with EU elections (Postponment of referendum in Italy). It’s the usual and very sad Italian habits of winning referendum by making them fail thanks to the presence of quorum. And it is a signal of a complete incoherence in politicians when they suggest people not to go to vote when they want just to obtain a specific result. Both yes and no are good votes in a referendum, the only behaviour not really acceptable is avoiding going to vote. In this way we deprive all the other people of their rights to express their opinion in the way granted by our democracy. Luckily someone who cares for constitutional rights and civic duties maybe still exist: Fini, as can be expected by Chamber’s President, will go to vote at referendum and invite all Italians to do the same.

Elisa Camozzi

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