Election in Italy: another close one
I see a trend here, although it’s not one I claim to understand: the Italian election is another cliff-hanger, too close to form a clear majority and give a clear mandate:
Final results showed Prodi’s alliance taking control of the Chamber, winning by a margin of just 25,224 out of more than 38 million votes cast. Berlusconi’s coalition held a one-seat lead in the Senate, with the results of six seats for Italians living abroad to be determined later today.
Shades of Germany last fall:
The outcome of the Italian vote has parallels with the inconclusive election result in Germany in September. Christian Democrat Angela Merkel eventually formed a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats after two months of talks which led to outgoing Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s retirement from politics.
Our last two Presidential elections were rather close, too, as you might recall.
What does it mean? Beats me. A sort of equal-opportunity disillusionment with all parties?
Under the old system of both local parliamentary elections and party lists, Berlusconi was (according to polls) getting trounced. So, he simply abolished the local elections and made everything national, which meant that the election was contested almost entirely on TV. As the owner of the biggest TV networks in Italy (as well as the public stations) this gave Berlusocni enough of an advantage to almost break even.
So I don’t know about ‘equal-opportunity disillusionment with all parties’, it seems more like an unpopular leader manipulating the system.
The best way to think of it, is this way. What would have changed in American history had ALL of our Presidents been Senators and Congressmen instead of Governors? That is what a Euro Parliamentary system demands. The PM is the leader elected by his party, like the Senate Majority Leader. The PM is NOT a leader in the classical American sense, out on the frontier fighting folks with head scalpers.
So regardless of who gets voted in what, in Old Europe. Their PM will always be a master at political infighting, and never a True Leader. The Japanese still understand leadership, that’s why they’re still golden. For now. But Europe, the word “fuhrer” has been outlawed from common pronunciation.
Britain is a litte bit different because their leader, Churchill, didn’t bombthe way France and Germany’s had. But still, corruption, corruption and still more corruption will bring down the best of leaders.
In some ways, I hope the socialists win in Italy and Germany.
One reason being, it’s not me that’s going to suffer for their policies. Second, this way American can collect all the credit and the blame, for Iraq. This is an important historical point, in that it will help us prevent future retarded ideologies from coming to power in the far far future. Assuming we defeat Islamic terror.
Environmentalism is next, in the race to see which ideology can kill the most humans in human history.
Communism is currently leading, but only because they had nukes and were safe from outside regime change.
I see Islamic terror as a test, of America. Do we have what it takes to deal with the real world like adults, or do we need to hide behind our Euro peers and the skirts of their babushkas?
I can’t help but think Bush’s religion is leading him astray. Not in the sense that the religious right is brainwashing Bush, but rather that Bush’s encounter with Born Again and his alcoholicism really backfired on his personality in the sense that he no longer goes off recklessly like Teddy Roosevelt would nor does Bush ignore people if he can work alone.
Clinton would go it alone, because Clinton likes attention and the power war gives to popularity. Because Bush doesn’t pay much attention to popularity, Bush believe it or not, actually feels more free to delay and procrastinate before warring.
I’m not exactly sure that is a good thing.
I really don’t think the elections in Europe matter. Old Europe at least. Poland matters a bit more than that. Quite a bit more.
Because of the parliamentary mess they have, they don’t have a lot of strong leadership. Their people can’t vote for a strong leader, because they have to vote for the party as well. If we had to vote in the Republicans all the time, just to get Bush, I don’t think Bush would have gotten nearly as many votes.
Wouldn’t that be Jove and Saturn, instead of Zeus and Cronos?
(Given that we are speaking of Italy, not Greece.)
What does it mean? Zeus is struggling to escape Cronus this go round. He may not make it.