Mental electoral arithmetic

How Italians are going to vote is not clear. But the result will matter both to the future of their country and to the euro

Feb 16th 2013 | ROME |From the print edition

A CASUAL visitor to Rome might be forgiven for failing to notice that Italy is holding a general election on February 24th and 25th. Along the streets a few scruffy, amateurish posters flap disconsolately in the wind. Many are for the local and not the national election. Most are ignored by scurrying passers-by.

It is a similar story in the rest of the country, with election rallies attended by remarkably few. There is more interest in Lombardy, the country’s most populous region, partly because it may directly affect the make-up of the next government and partly because it is also holding a tight regional race; and also in Sicily, where the polls are too close to call. But most Italians show little interest in the contest.

To an outsider their apathy seems extraordinary. Italy’s dire economic situation—14 years of near-zero growth, a deep double-dip recession since 2007 and over 12 months of painful austerity—ought surely to make the voters angry. And it ought to worry them, too, just as it worries observers elsewhere in Europe, who see in Italy’s position the threat of the euro crisis bursting back into life. Yet Italians seem disillusioned with all politicians, whether left, right or centre; and a depressing number still seem ready to be won over by Silvio Berlusconi’s snake-oil. Most analysts expect a low turnout by previous standards: below the 80% of April 2008, perhaps down to 70%.

In the most recent election, in 2008, Mr Berlusconi’s right-wing People of Liberty (PdL) movement and its coalition partners, including the Northern League, won handily, leading the centre-left by 47% to 37.5% and gaining big majorities in both chambers of parliament. But the desertion of key allies, a sharply deteriorating economy and a collapse of confidence in Italy’s sovereign bonds brought him low. In November 2011 he resigned and was replaced by Mario Monti, a professor and former European commissioner; many detected the hands of the European Central Bank and of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, in the coup de grâce.

Mental electoral arithmetic

Mr Monti’s technocratic government has done much to restore Italy’s tattered credibility. It began the task of freeing up an overregulated economy, setting about pension and labour-market reforms. But its legislative and budgetary measures have needed the parliamentary backing of the PdL and of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), led by Pier Luigi Bersani. For most of 2012 these two parties took every opportunity to water down Mr Monti’s reforms and fiscal austerity, but stopped short of blocking them outright. Then, in early December, Mr Berlusconi abruptly withdrew his support, triggering an early election.

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