Letta, however, had the added quality of being the nephew of Gianni Letta, a close adviser to Silvio Berlusconi and significant figure in the media magnate’s center-right Forza Italia party, which was supporting the government. When Berlusconi was found guilty of corruption in August 2013 and, after endless wrangling and stalling, finally expelled from the Senate, Letta’s government was seriously weakened. In February 2014, Letta was replaced by Matteo Renzi, then the mayor of Florence and the new leader of the Partito Democratico. [...]
That Renzi found the energy to persuade the Senate to vote for its own demotion is extraordinary. But he had promised a referendum on the reforms before they would become law. In the run-up to that vote, the press presented him as a man seeking to grab power for himself, his family, and his buddies, rather than sharing it among the endless factions that make up Italian politics. Few Italians believe in the possibility of anyone seeking power genuinely in the interest of the nation as a whole. In the December 2016 referendum, Italian voters rejected his reforms, Renzi resigned, and the country was once again consigned to be governed by a gray, accommodating figure, Paolo Gentiloni. After a debacle of this magnitude, it seems unlikely that anyone will try to reform the Italian constitution for decades to come.
As if this failure were not demoralizing enough, the forthcoming election will be held under a new electoral law laboriously put together during Gentiloni’s government after the previous system, which Berlusconi introduced in 2005, was pronounced unconstitutional. The complications and compromises of this law would beggar belief, if Italians were not inured to such things. Essentially, it mixes some constituencies whose representatives will be elected by straight majority vote (or first-past-the-post) with other, larger constituencies where a number of representatives will be chosen on a proportional basis. Though the districts and distribution for each chamber differ, both chambers will comprise roughly one third directly-elected delegates and two thirds by the proportional system allocated according to numbered lists of candidates submitted by every party. Constitutionally, the House of Deputies and the Senate will continue to have equal power and thus the ability to cancel out each other’s decision-making and legislative powers. [...]
Despite this, there is no serious debate about Italy’s relations with the EU, or about its foreign policy in general and the country’s position in the world. There is equally an absence of any radical proposals for getting the economy moving again. Extraordinarily, given his record in office and ineligibility to serve in the government, Berlusconi is offering himself as a safe pair of hands who could guide his party’s elected representatives from outside parliament, thus saving the country from the presumed incompetence of the Five Star Movement.
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