Who knew the Italian press could do puns?
More information which suggests why the referendum was lost comes from Renato Mannheimer’s column in yesterday’s Corriere (available through Brunik). Here are the relevant cross-tabs:
So, the centre-right was less able to bring its supporters to the polls. As David suggested to me, the 20% of ‘traitorous’ centre-right supporters is probably accounted for by the centre-right’s [...]
This story on the forthcoming parliamentary vote on the re-financing of the Italian mission in Afghanistan. The Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (16 seats in the Camera; 11 in the Senato along with the Greens) has threatened to vote against. It seems that the government may win a majority with the aid of the UDC.
This after [...]
Looks like the attentive blogger at menteindependente picked up on the 2006 Freedom House report on freedom of the media: Italy remains in 79th place in the world, with a classification of ‘partly free’. Italy is, along with Turkey, the only European country with this classification. Unfortunately, the 2006 report doesn’t seem to be [...]
More analysis on the weekend’s referendum. A number of hypotheses:
Voters judged that the referendum would worsen the position of economically disadvantaged regions relative to economically advantaged regions; we should expect the referendum to be lost most heavily in the most economically disadvantaged regions
Voters judged that the referendum would worsen the position of the South and [...]
After yesterday’s referendum defeat for the centre-right, Repubblica.it reports some scuttlebutt that may signal a very poor future for the parties that supported the reform:
Berlusconi dopo la sconfitta “Ora proveranno a farmi fuori” – Politica – Repubblica.it: “Al Senato, ad esempio, è già scattato l’allarme. Un plotone di 6-7 senatori potrebbe trasferirsi armi e bagagli [...]
Well, the results are out in today’s referendum on the constitutional revision programme of the centre-right. Take-away points:
the proposal was rejected convincingly, with more than six in ten voters disapproving of the law
the South & Islands rejecting the proposal most strongly, followed by Central Italy, then the North
Forza Italia strongholds (Lombardy and the Veneto) were [...]
El Mundo reports that former Prime Minister Aznar has resigned as Councillor of State (UK: Privy Councillor) in virtue of the incompatibility of that office with his membership of the board of News Corporation. As with all controversial cases of post-political careers, the question is: what does Aznar bring to NewsCorp?
I haven’t posted recently thanks to what will hopefully be my last-ever exams. I hope to post more in the next couple of days – especially on the referendum and Savoia scandal issues, but for the moment, BlogGoverno is an excellent site which involves sectoral ‘experts’ commenting on the government’s action.
ePolitix.com – Text vote to choose Tory mayoral candidate: another example of (a) David Cameron’s tactical brilliance, and (b) the successful export of American-style primaries, used successfully in Italy to choose Romano Prodi as the centre-left’s flag-bearer.