So in a very tight election (as always in Italy) the centre left won in the House of Deputies but Berlusconi topped the poll in the Senate – oh Italy you aren’t making things easy on yourself are you? Come on, pull yourself together.
So why the different results for the different houses?
34 million people voted for the House of Deputies and 30.6 million for the Senate, the difference presumably down to the fact that while you can vote at 18 for the House you must be 25 to vote for the Senate (numbers from the government website here, don’t blame me if they’re wrong!).
The main losers from this weren’t the top two contenders at all but the minor parties and the iconoclastic comedian Beppe Grillo, the sort of joke “a plague on all their corrupt houses” candidate who is widely thought to be of the right if not the political class. The fact young people have less set political ties and are slightly more willing to vote for “outsiders” is not a massive surprise, although it’s interesting to have the truth confirmed.
While the centre left actually got more slightly votes than Berlusconi in both elections because the House of Deputies is a national poll (where the winner gets extra seats) and the Senate is a set of regional polls where the *national* winner is irrelevant it allowed the right to achieve a three Senator lead over their main rivals because of how the votes were spread from region to region.
Just the facts, Jack
Here are the numbers for the big four, I’ll give a name check in a minute to a few of those who stood but failed to win enough votes to get elected, for the moment here are the Coalitions who won seats (and make up more than 90% of the total vote).
Bersani leads the centre left coalition, Berlusconi and Grillo you know and Monti is the Eurocrat who was imposed on the country when the economy went tits up who was pretty soundly rejected.
House of deputies
Bersani 10 million votes, 29,54% that’s 340 seats taking account of the top up.
Berlusconi 9.9 million votes, 29,18 % which is 124 seats despite the less than half percent difference in votes.
Grillo 8.7 million votes, 25,55%, which is 108 seats.
Monti 3,6 million votes, 10.56%, a disappointing (for him) 45 seats.
Senate
Bersani 9.7 million votes, 31,63%, making 113 seats.
Berlusconi 9.4 million votes, 30,72%, making 116 seats.
Grillo 7.3 million votes, 23,79%, making 54 seats.
Monti 2.8 million votes, 9,13%, making 18 seats.
So you can see that while the electoral system makes it appear that voters made wildly different choices creating an uncertain future, that uncertainty simply comes from a very close result. The people themselves are divided on the future of Italy and the top up seats in the House of Deputies masks exactly how tight the votes really were.
A touch of detail – the left coalition
The centre left coalition was made up of six parties. The Democratic Party (Labour equivalent), Left Ecology Freedom (a grouping including one half of the Green split), and some others. Left Ecology Freedom now have seven senators and 37 MPs in the House of Deputies which no doubt makes the Greens involved think they chose the right half to be in as they mark a return to parliament for the eco-friendly politicians.
The other half of the Greens stood on the far-left Civil Revolution list with our old friends the Refounded Communist Party, the Party of Italian Communists and Italy of Values, among others. This is the European Green Party half of the split who were hoping to retake their place in Parliament but at less than 3% for the whole coalition it was not to be.
Confusingly as I understand it the Greens who are in the centre left coalition appear to have broken from the Greens in the Communist coalition because they were not thought to be left-wing enough. I suspect this may be one of those stated reasons vs real reasons things and the supposed leftist split were more peeved at not winning the leadership of the party than any rightward drift, hence their comfort at aligned with New Labour sorts rather than Old Commie sorts. But what do I know? Very little is the answer, I’m sure they are all lovely.
What should we take away from all this
Well, here are my six think-points, in no particular order;
- Monti went from running the government to footnote to electoral history in short order because no one had ever elected him to run the government and people were cheesed off with the idea that austerity was simply going to be imposed on them. When the people had their say they kicked him out without tears.
- 35% of the vote went to parties that he not existed at the last election and were, in very different ways, a rejection of the old order. Monti’s ten percent does represent people who think the politicians are not qualified to run the country and Grillo youth orientated movement, which gathered rallies of up to two million people (I’d like to see Ed Miliband do that in 2015) was explicitly anti-corruption and anti-politician.
- The far-left continues to be excluded from Parliament after its disastrous experience in the Prodi government that fell in 2008. This is the old time since the Second World War that Communists have not been represented at this level and must, frankly, sting. The Left Ecology Freedom MPs and senators are now the only representatives of the left of the left and so, I say, good luck to them.
- While the battle against austerity in theory looks like favourable terrain for parties with a more anti-capitalist outlook the votes have, in reality, gone in two directions. Firstly to those parties with a track record that voters trust to handle the economy, and secondly to parties who are a looser, more ambiguous, rejection of the political establishment. While Monti’s rejection is good you’d have to have particularly rose coloured glasses on to think voters rejected austerity itself.
- The markets had been gearing up for a boost in expectation of a centre-left victory but when it became clear the picture was more messy with Berlusconi, amazingly, back from the dead, they have plummeted. The markets wanted the centre-left to win.
- Lastly, while we think Berlusconi is a joke and that everyone believes him to be a joke we have to acknowledge that the Italian voters do not agree. Almost ten million people voted for his team, many of whom in the sincere belief that he’d be better for the country than anyone else. try not to let that keep you awake at night.