ABOVE IMAGE: RENZI EXPRESSING HIS EXACT SENTIMENTS AFTER THE VOTE
GAITHER STEWART
(Dateline: Rome)
On Sunday last, the arrogant and extremely ambitious Matteo Renzi lost his bet with destiny. The personalized referendum lost by a whopping margin of 60% of No votes to 40% Yes votes, in which voted a record referendum turnout of 70% of the electorate. After three years in power, Renzi’s original popularity has fallen constantly. Not however his arrogance, which has grown enormously as illustrated in his belief that his personal charisma would carry him to victory despite the too many enemies he has made, not only in Italy but also in the European Union where he has become a sort of enfant terrible. He ignored or did not know the fact that no long-term leader in the West maintains a popularity rate as high as 40%. (French President Hollande has a rating somewhere in the teens, Angela Merkel’s in Germany is likewise very low.)
Therefore, a momentarily humbled Prime Minister immediately announced his loss and his resignation. The procedure following the resignation of the chief of the government in Rome is a well-oiled system, which in 70 years has produced nearly one new government a year. According to the protocol, the resigning Prime Minister goes to the Presidential Quirinal Palace and formally submits his resignation to the President of the Republic. The President can accept the resignation with or without reservations and begin a search for a new candidate PM. Or he can charge the resigning minister to attempt to form a new government himself.
As of today the outcome is uncertain. Renzi’s resignation after his defeat sounded sincere and final. However, as above, he is a very ambitious young man in the prime of his political career. IMO he could chalk his defeat up to experience and unashamedly accept the challenge to form a new government. Or he can concentrate on resolving the internal crisis in his own party, still the nation’s leading political party of which he is the elected leader. Renzi’s party, the Partito Democratico (PD), though split between its left and right wings, (the PD Left wing was a leader in the No vote, violently opposing Renzi’s proposed electoral law), is still the strongest on the confused political scene.
If Renzi personally has 40% of the electorate behind him, the 60% opposition is divided among quarrelling, rancorous and uncompromising center, rightwing and extreme right wing parties. The opposition that brought down Renzi has no concrete ideas nor enough capable people to form a government majority. Powerful in the opposition, neither the Five-Star Movement (M5S) of ex-comedian Beppe Grillo, nor the extreme rightwing Northern League led by young Matteo Salvini appear as likely national leaders, while 80-year old Silvio Berlusconi debates retirement from politics.
Furthermore, one analysis of Sunday’s referendum shows that the No vote consisted of both a conservative vote against Renzi and constitutional change and a vote to change everything. The impossibility of agreement between these two very Italian concepts does not augur well for a future Rome government. In fact that reality marks the Italy of the past in which Rome governments changed almost yearly. A return to that past is an unwished for possibility.
Meanwhile, after Renzi’s 1000 days during which his great promise was to make of Italy a “normal” country, signs of instability are in the air, stronger than ever. The Euro currency fell overnight. National debt has again been growing. Italian banks are shaky despite Renzian claims of their solidity so that traditionally thrifty Italians do not know where to put their savings. Resentment against the European Union and NATO is highly contagious and continues to spread; Italy’s exit from both are not far-fetched dreams.
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