ITALY'S FUTURE IS AT STAKE ON THE 4TH OF MARCH
Italians are preparing their way to the ballot boxes on the 4th of March, in a tense atmosphere and with feelings of great uncertainty. The latest official pre-election polls, closed by law on 17th of February, showed the Partito Democratico (PD) still in deep and free fall, despite all attempts of party leader Matteo Renzi to reverse the tide. Despite the massive help of MSM, backing him since he entered national political arena. Despite the RAI, Italian State Television, is broadcasting supportively and daily about Renzi's words an deeds, and despite Giorgio Alleva, the by Renzi appointed director of Istat (National Institute of Statistics) tries to highlight encouraging economical performances of Italy, which is an endeavour indeed, since showing the opposite would be much easier. Despite all help and recent Juncker's endorsement, PD could drop even below 20%.
Beppe Grillo's populistic Five Star Movement (M5S) certainly took advantage of the vacuum left by PD, by harvesting the favors of the jobless angry youth. The rising stars of Italy's political firmament may have reached their ceiling, since they resulted stagnating at roughly 30% in many surveys of last year. The Movement, headed by Luigi Di Maio, became however country's most popular single party. Their ideology is so confusing, that nobody really knows what they want and where they intend to go.
Liberi e Uguali ( Free and Equal, acronym LeU ), a miscellany of Leftists souls, headed by Pietro Grasso, current Senate's president, is maybe able to scrape together 5%. Abortionist, open border and free drugs campaigner Emma Bonino with her " Più Europa " party could also get through the minimum 3% threshold required to enter parliament.
The so called Center Right welded together a coalition of three.
"Fratelli d'Italia" ( Brothers of Italy - FdI ), headed by firebrand Giorgia Meloni, is the smallest of them, polling constantly around 5%. They are in favor of the return of the nation State.
Silvio Berlusconi, former PM, is campaigning for his centrist Forza Italia ( FI ) mainly through his waxwork appearance on television. Yes, he is back again on the scene, 81 years old, after a long political limbo. He is recasting himself as the " nonno d'Italia " ( Italy's grandfather ), bringing 16% of the share to FI.
The third component of the alliance is the Lega ( L ) of Matteo Salvini, who removed its former appellative " Nord ", and transformed an independence party into a national federal movement. L could conquer as many votes as FI, and maybe even more.
The Center-Right alliance need a 3% more votes in order to reach 40% of the share
and get the majority of the 630 deputies and 315 senators of the Italian parliament.
There are many more parties, none of which however is expected to get through the 3% barrier.
30% of the voters are yet undecided.
25% of the Italians won't vote, becoming the second largest party of the country. They completely lost confidence in politics, and some of them agree upon Mark Twain's quote:
" If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it "
Three are the main electoral topics of debate: work, immigration and security.
After 7 years of Leftist governments, Italy is ranking first in Europe about unemployment and under-employment. Youth unemployment is still over 30%, with little hope to improve. GDP will only grow 1.7% in 2018, rearguard performance in Europe. Renzi and Gentiloni are bragging about their reforms and the benefits Italy is supposed to receive from their wise economic policy, but more and more citizens lost confidence in their words and promises. Entire sectors of Italy's industry relocated elsewhere, closed activity or were sold to foreign holders. Lamborghini, Pirelli, Ducati, Valentino, Gucci, Ansaldo kept just their Italian names. Renzi even sold territorial waters to France.
30 % of Italians are currently living in relative poverty, and about 5 millions live in absolute poverty. The trend is going uphill since 2011. The austerity policy, required by Brussels, didn't help at all lowering national public debt, which climbed from 1.900 billions € and 120% GDP in 2011 up to 2.300 billions € and 132% GDP in 2017.
PM Renzi at the end of 2015 considered national banking system on the safe side, and ensured his citizens that Italian banks were more solid than in the rest of Europe. Suddenly Monte dei Paschi Siena, the oldest credit institution still operating in the world, collapsed under billions of budget chasm. Other banks followed. Thousands of Italian families lost all their savings, and discovered that their money saved banks in Germany and France, and financed projects and political friends without escrow.
It is no coincidence that lack of jobs goes together with very high tax burden on those at work, and on the small and medium-sized enterprises. Between 2005 and 2015 taxes in Italy grew 3.2%, compared to an average 1.5% inside the Eurozone, reaching 43% of GDP, only lower than Denmark, France, Belgium, Sweden and Finland. The difference however between Italy and fiscal civilized countries lies in the fact that in Italy there is an abysmal gap between average 43% of GDP tax revenue and the real tax burden on employed and self-employed, which reaches unsustainable levels of 60%, 70% and even 80%. Every two days in 2017 a firm closed activity, and during the same period a small business did the same every hour!
"La dolce vita" is just the caricature of an elitist Italian lifestyle, from which many politicians aren't detached. Most Italians instead are poor because of precarious jobs or just poor hard working serfs for sharkish revenue authorities, euphemistically called "Equitalia" ( Fair Italy ).
The discontent and anger towards current political establishment are therefore great.
The other two issues, immigration and security, are logically interwoven. The French professor and writer Alexandre Del Valle recently described the situation in Italy as follows:
" Selfishness and nonchalance of European countries about Italy's immigration problems are astonishing. They simply don't consider Italy's concerns. Italians feel entirely flooded in an unimaginable way, especially in the south of the country...
Palermo is barely recognizable, compared to few years ago...
A social and demographic transformation is under way, the Italians talk about invasion... They feel abandoned by Brussels, victims of a demographic flooding, and they became radicalized in both directions. Revolutionary Marxism and immigrationist radical-chique bourgeoisie maintain the need and duty of welcoming everybody, without border control. Leonluca Orlando, mayor of Palermo, put it in this way: " Borders are torture devices "...
A complete disconnection is unfolding between political establishments and the people. Euroscepticism is rising everywhere, society is divided as never before. Criminality and acts of violence are increasing...
A nebula of NGOs, payed by American millionaires like Soros and many other anonymous donors, are shipping migrants nearby the Libyan coast, and ferry them to Italian harbours...
Italy has become a social laboratory for Leftist projects of migratory floods.
Replacement of people is part of the Leftist ideological framework, because Europe is considered evil, the West is evil and Christian civilization is ghastly. So, apparently there is a project consistent with the targets of the extreme Left: combat against the evil national States, destabilization and destruction of the West. The world must be turned uside down, legality must become illegal. The Constitution, foundation of the national State, must be changed. Borders need to be thrown open towards an unlimited immigration... "
Other topics of pubblic debate are of course the influence of the Euro on the limping economy, whereby many citizens are convinced that Italy has a wrong currency. Also the influence of the EU into domestic affairs is often questioned, as well as the influence of Italy among Brussels' decision makers. Also the political role of the current Pope is discussed, the attitude of openness and dialogue of the Church towards Islam, the transformation of the family, the gender theory...
The Left tries meanwhile to divert attention from many embarrassing issues in which it is involved, claiming that Italy's main problem isn't its social breakdown, its economy in shambles and its decline of ethics and culture, but the resurgence of fascism. Instead of addressing real problems, the Left organizes antifascist meetings and processions, often marked by violence, against the phantom of a fascism which expired more than 70 years ago with the head-down hanging of Mussolini.
On the 4th of March Italians decide their future. Either continuing to blaze the Leftist trail of the past 7 years, or choosing for a different approach, looking at Brexit, Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.
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