3048 italian elections draw near!

no, i am not going to try to preach politics, but got my voting papers this
week. have never voted in the italian elections, as i don't live there,and
have always found it strange that i could vote in 2 countries?

anyway my mother and father are going out there earlier this year just to
vote! they seem to think that its important this time to do so,so its got me
thinking that maybe i should vote as well.

personelly speaking i believe that by its very own nature, those that rise to
the top,cannot posibly be the sort of people that know how to make the
balance between whats right and fair, and good buisness sense,usually u
are one or the other.

now IF i do vote, i am favouring prodi, not because i know much about the
politics, economy, or the party but the fact that berlo is extremely wealthy
controls a vast media empire, to me means he is the very last person in
italy who should be premier,who noise maybe prodi is the second from last?

so what am i after? well lets forget the scandals and who comes across best
on tv,what i want to know, if poss is their real backgrounds? anything that
has a relevance to the persons understanding of economics, not just about
them being able to make money. there social stands/viewpionts.

i am not looking for a slagging match, but i am serious about voting,which is
unusual for me,as my personel viewpiont is... u don't really get much of a
choice, they are usually as bad as each other....

Category

General chat about Italy

So, you vote with either your head, or, your heart, using a pen.
You already know the questions to ask, just form your own opinion and cast your vote...:)

obviously voting is important. I'm so worried I may wait to see what happens before committing to anything in Italy. Unfortunately both parties are corrupt and so I suppose you have to decide which helps the country grow and thereby helps everyone do better. Looking at England and the USA - those dastardly anglo-saxons!!! - I suspect that freeing small businesses from crippling charges, helps. Here in France, small business people either work themselves to death or sell because they can't afford to hire anyone. In France the whole unemployment issue is a mess and it won't improve. Luckily I generally work for myself when I work. Politicians may start out with idealistic reasons but political life corrupts and as the saying goes "absolute power, corrupts absolutely." but I still believe there is always a lesser of two evils. Actually I rather like rich people in politics because at least they dont' need to make money from politics! Here we've had Jospin and Chirac, and all I can say is - here in France we need a new party!!! Italy looks stable to me!

I got papers in the post last week as well - two sets, don't understand much of either of them.

Are there any penalties for not voting?

[QUOTE=Sano]I got papers in the post last week as well - two sets, don't understand much of either of them.

Are there any penalties for not voting?[/QUOTE]

Italy used to be a nation of migrants, spreading her sons and doughter all over the world, form Buenos Aires to New York, from Paris to Melbourne.
These migrants settled down in these new countries and their offspring (if still italian citizens) are now entitled, for the first time, to vote for the italian parliament, electing their own representative.
This is an absolute novelty and I really do not know if and how it could work, but surely there are not penalties for not voting.

We have also received voting papers and lots of correspondence from the various parties, it looks very complicated!

Apparently there are 3.5 million Italians eligible to vote outside Italy, no wonder they are going to such trouble in writing to us.

Susi

[QUOTE=notaio]Italy used to be a nation of migrants, spreading her sons and doughter all over the world, form Buenos Aires to New York, from Paris to Melbourne.
These migrants settled down in these new countries and their offspring (if still italian citizens) are now entitled, for the first time, to vote for the italian parliament, electing their own representative.
This is an absolute novelty and I really do not know if and how it could work, but surely there are not penalties for not voting.[/QUOTE]

I have received two notices direct from the comune in Campania, and now a huge rake of paperwork from the Embassy. Will be asking my Italian colleagues to go over it this morning.

For me it is really quite strange that the first democratic elections I will participate in will be for my 'ancestral' homeland rather than my own home country, where I have not ever been allowed to vote by virtue of being an expat.

I believe if anyone has the right to vote, should. Just a personal opinion, not a criticism of those who choose not to.

For me, when you see how people in countries where they don't have the free vote fight to have it, and where you see countries where it doesn't matter how you vote because the outcome is rigged, and when you see through history the fight and struggle people have had to gain the vote I think that not doing so is wrong.

As for the election it is hard to say who to vote for. Berlusconi may be rich, but it doesn't stop him using his position to gain more. During his time in charge, his own personal wealth has increased immensely, whilst the average Italian will say they feel worse off than before. He abuses his position to save his own sorry ass from being prosectued. Lets not forget, Berlusconi is practically the prodigal son of Benito Craxi.
But that doesn't mean voting for Prodi's coalition is a better option. Whilst Prodi was premier previously, he did manage to oversee Italy's entry into the Euro. Despite all the complaints of the Euro, I'm sure most Italians would prefer the low interest rate they currently have to the 10% rates they had not so many years back. After all, the Euro does offer a more stabilised currency than the Lira did. But the coalition behind Prodi is fragile, and does anyone really see how it can last a full term as government? I can't.
I think if I were to vote, I would vote for Prodi, because Berlusconi has to be shown that how he has behaved is not acceptable and the only way to do this is to vote him out. That's the choice, I feel. Endorse Berlusconi, or give the opposition a chance.

Did I understand him right? My Italian is still not too hot. In the face to face I thought that Berlusconi said that he had only changed the law to favour himself 4 times? I don't like either party because they are made up of too many factions, but this guy is just a clown.

I've just read a very good article about Zio Berlusca on the Newsweek website.

The Rise and fall of Berlusconi

[QUOTE]April 3, 2006 issue - The lights were set up, the camera was ready. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stood in front of the Italian and European Union flags, ready for a portrait, but he stopped for a second to chat with an American reporter. "You know," he said, practicing a line he would use before a joint session of the U.S. Congress a few days later. "When I see the American flag, I don't see just a symbol of a country, I see a symbol of freedom and democracy." He smiled, satisfied. "And the European flag?" thet reporter asked. Berlusconi seemed a little taken aback. He paused and thought. "Under construction," he said.Listening to the 69-year-old billionaire turned politician's increasingly frenzied politicking against the euro and Brussels, one might think "under destruction" would be more accurate—especially if Berlusconi manages to win his uphill bid for re-election on April 9 against former European Commission president Romano Prodi. Right now, however, that seems unlikely. Berlusconi's political machine is in meltdown. The candidate's first televised debate was a disaster. His coalition and his cabinet are out of control. Instead of tending to allies, he's battling the big business interests that ought to be his core support—all of them alarmed by Italy's seemingly unstoppable economic slide. Along with much of the rest of Europe, they hope more and more for a Prodi victory. But while many of Italy's ills can justly be laid at the door of its flamboyant prime minister, those that matter most—and most threaten the rest of Europe—will persist no matter who wins this year's closest and most important election.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, at least in Berlusconi's eye. He imagined winning a second term by sheer force of personality, thrusting himself onto the public stage to showcase his natural advantages: ebullience, charm and take-charge personal confidence. But that strategy seems to have backfired. Tense and defensive, he looks these days like he probably feels—a man whose hopes for staying a step ahead of Italy's vindictive prosecutors (by running the country) are coming to a potentially ugly end. The latest polls show him behind by 3.5 to 5 points, a gap that has lately widened rather than narrowed. The winning smile that has long been his emblem looks increasingly like a rictus. Berlusconi's last best hope is that the Socialists' famously soporific Prodi will so thoroughly bore the electorate—or the extremist fringes of Prodi's cobbled-together leftist coalition so appall it—that at the last moment Italians will throw up their hands and return to the long-running political carnival that has been Silvio's Circus.

It would be premature to count him out, of course. As the longest-serving Italian prime minister since World War II, he has brought admirable political stability to a country notorious for its lack thereof. Yet Europe wants him gone, for good reason. Partly it's his government's uncanny knack for infuriating European leaders, which at times seems almost pathological. At the height of the controversy over Muhammad cartoons earlier this year, one Berlusconi minister donned a T shirt emblazoned with a particularly insulting caricature of the prophet. (The minister resigned, but not before 14 people were killed in anti-Italian riots in Libya.) Harking back to 2003, when Berlusconi likened a German member of the European Parliament to a "kapo" in a concentration camp, a member of his cabinet just last week compared the Netherlands' legalization of euthanasia to Nazi eugenics. Even the government of Berlusconi's ally Tony Blair has been rattled by accusations that the Italian magnate involved the husband of a British cabinet member in money laundering and tax evasion, a charge both men deny.
The real danger that Berlusconi's Italy poses for Europe, however, is economic. Over his tenure, Europe's fourth largest economy has become its weakest link. From an already anemic growth rate of 1.8 percent in 2001, Italy slowed to 0.0 last year. Niente! The country faces such "profound, serious problems," new Central Bank Gov. Mario Draghi said this month, that it has "run aground." And worries are growing that the country will be an increasing drag on the rest of the European Union. "There's no doubt that Italy is the sick man of Europe," says economist Tito Boeri of the prestigious Bocconi University business school in Milan. Is Berlusconi to blame? Of course not, he trumpets, pointing an accusatory finger at the economic crunch following the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, a few months after he took office. "Europe probably suffered most, after what occurred, because of its inability to adjust," Berlusconi told NEWSWEEK last month. In his version of history, restrictions on debt and the rising strength of the euro are at the heart of the problem. "Four years ago," said Berlusconi, "to buy a euro, 82 cents of a U.S. dollar were enough. Today you need $1.20. What does this mean? That any European product is more expensive by 50 percent!" Thanks to Brussels, "our companies have their hands tied, are crushed, are squeezed between the hypervaluation of the euro, the many regulations they have to comply with, and competitions from new economic systems led by China and India which, among other things, resort to unfair competition."

Berlusconi doesn't go so far as to say he'd pull out of the euro zone, if re-elected. In his interview, he put it more obliquely: "I'll try to convince my colleagues to open their eyes and change, which is not very easy." Despite Berlusconi's hot rhetoric about the euro, he knows the cold realities. When Italy had the lira, sure, Rome could devalue whenever necessary to jump-start exports. But those tactics brought on double-digit inflation, forcing families and small businesses to become currency speculators if they wanted to survive. The sense of insecurity that created is one reason earlier governments were so shaky and short-lived. The EU stability pact that underwrites the euro has been in place the whole time Berlusconi has held office—and probably helped to keep him there, if only by forcing his government to keep its spending under some semblance of control. Berlusconi recognizes as well as anyone that Italy's economic decline would probably accelerate under more-populist policies. "Deficits would go sky-high," says Antonio Missiroli, chief policy analyst at the European Policy Center in Brussels. "You could end up with a sort of Argentina-like crisis."

In fact, Italy could end up there anyway, with or without Berlusconi. The man who made billions by building a private media empire likes to present himself as the paradigm of entrepreneurship and a great friend of business. And to be fair, he has introduced new flexibility into the labor market and managed to reform the pension system further. But while he talks about the bottom line, he's really about razzle-dazzle. What sounded like bold concepts for cutting taxes and government bureaucracy when he took office in 2001 now smacks of what some call "spaghetti economics." As Italy's economy has declined, Il Cavaliere has made almost no effort to introduce the sort of serious reforms that could reverse the slide. "In his five years there were neither big privatizations nor structural reforms," says Boeri. "His idea was just to raise public expenditure and cut taxes to revitalize demand." It didn't work. Many European businessmen now worry that, eventually, Italy's economy will deteriorate to such an extent that the country could be forced out of the euro zone even if Berlusconi doesn't really want to go that route—and even if Prodi, Mr. Europe, is elected.

[/QUOTE]

Cont on next page.......

Continued:

[QUOTE]In a sense, Italy is the proverbial apple that poisons the barrel. Consider the situation Prodi finds himself in. Even if he wins by a substantial margin, he will have a hard time taking the economic steps he considers necessary. Reason: thanks to changes in the electoral law pushed through by Berlusconi, Italy has returned to the old system of proportional representation that created such unstable coalitions in the past. "The country will be much less governable," says John Harper at the Bologna Center of Johns Hopkins University. Yet obviously, painful decisions must be made. Italy's trade deficit for 2005 surpassed ¤10 billion, a result of both skyrocketing energy costs and rising labor expenses. European budget deficits are supposed to be held to 3 percent of GDP annually. Several countries have exceeded that, but Italy, at about 4 percent, is among the worst. And its example makes it easier for other countries to justify slipping beyond the bounds.
Compare Italy's zero growth with other nations of Europe: Spain at 3.4 percent, the U.K. at 1.8 percent, France at 1.4 percent. Only by Italy's standards could such performance be considered anything but anemic. Yet at a time when Europeans need to believe in change, Berlusconi has actually helped discredit the kind of free-market reforms needed to make Italy's economy, and Europe's, more dynamic. He likes to cite the successes of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, but he has been utterly unwilling to walk their walk. Italian economic and industrial policies are so hapless, in fact, that the country's business class is in open revolt. One of Berlusconi's most aggressive critics is Diego Della Valle, chief executive of the global clothing and shoe behemoth most famous for the Tod's brand. After Della Valle took Berlusconi to task for his failures, Berlusconi denounced him as a businessman who'd "gone out of his mind and supports the left." Nor did he stop there. Della Valle "must have many skeletons in his closet, and many things that must be pardoned," Berlusconi went on to say, seemingly oblivious to accusations that he himself has misused his office and his power in the legislature to block or defeat criminal prosecution for his own business dealings. As for Della Valle, he dismissed the prime minister as "a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown." Italy's prime minister thus looks increasingly isolated. "Berlusconi is running alone this time," says Gianfranco Pasquino, author of a dozen books on Italian politics. His coalition partners have not only distanced themselves, they've taken to sniping at him. Fellow conservatives in other European countries are clearly uncomfortable. Germany's former chancellor Helmut Kohl, a key architect of European construction and the mentor of current Chancellor Angela Merkel, recently endorsed Berlusconi's opponent as "my friend" and said that only Prodi is "capable of restoring Italy to its place in Europe." In case anyone missed the point, Kohl underlined it: "Let me be clear: I am here to support a great European. [Prodi] is an excellent example of cosmopolitan Italy, linked to his roots but capable of looking beyond borders."

Under the circumstances, it is perhaps natural that Berlusconi would seek solace elsewhere. President George W. Bush, for one, still calls him "my friend." For Berlusconi's vocal support of democracy, his talk of free enterprise and for committing thousands of Italian troops to support the 2003 American-led occupation of Iraq, he won a standing ovation from the Republican-dominated Congress in Washington last month. The moment probably marked the high point of his election campaign back home, if only because it's rare that Italians have seen that kind of homage paid to one of their leaders. For a day or so, he was called l'Americano in the press with some grudging admiration. Meanwhile, the mercurial prime minister began a pullout last year of all the Italian forces in Iraq, amid concerns that Italy will be targeted by terrorists just as Spain was in 2004 and Britain last year.

After Berlusconi came back to Italy, both friends and enemies expected him to come on strong in the first televised debate with Prodi. But his performance went flat. Since then he's complained of back pain, and even taken enforced time off. Can Berlusconi recover his élan as well as his health? Only a few days are left in the campaign. April 3 brings another TV debate, in which the prime minister will be fighting for his political survival. The battle will be watched intently, at home and abroad. Detractors rooting for his fall cannot help but be mindful, however, that Berlusconi's passing would in many ways be only a prelude to further trouble. His escapades and pratfalls have been a diversion from Italy's grave, and growing, problems for far too long. Indeed, the country's difficulties are so formidable that any successor would have to be almost superhuman to overcome them. Is Prodi that man? Or will he find that, in his struggle to do the job that Berlusconi ducked, Italians do not want to follow? The stability that Berlusconi brought to the landscape might very well give way to the fractured, internecine politics of yore, with little agreement on where the country should go or how it should get there. This, ultimately, might be Berlusconi's legacy. Win or lose, Europe will be dealing with him and his works for many years to come.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12019244/site/newsweek/[/url]

[QUOTE=Jay3gsm]I believe if anyone has the right to vote, should. Just a personal opinion, not a criticism of those who choose not to.

i do like your informed posts [having also read the later one]one slight
problem with the u should vote mentallity, and that is the choice.
its ok to say that some people would like the freedom to vote,
but isn't it like being in a resturant that only serves potato dishes,yes u have
a choice, but u want pasta........

[QUOTE=giovanni]i do like your informed posts [having also read the later one]one slight
problem with the u should vote mentallity, and that is the choice.
its ok to say that some people would like the freedom to vote,
but isn't it like being in a resturant that only serves potato dishes,yes u have
a choice, but u want pasta........[/QUOTE]
potatoes are better than nothing

[QUOTE=notaio]potatoes are better than nothing[/QUOTE]

ok... i should have said cabbage.....:D

I do respect the right to choose. Most of us are lucky enough to live in a country where we have the free democratic choice of voting or not. I just think that looking at the larger picture, seeing how important having that right to vote is to so many people that we just take it for granted.

As for the restaurant analogy, with free choice, if you want pasta, you can choose another place to eat, no...? :)

[QUOTE=Jay3gsm]I do respect the right to choose. Most of us are lucky enough to live in a country where we have the free democratic choice of voting or not. I just think that looking at the larger picture, seeing how important having that right to vote is to so many people that we just take it for granted.

As for the restaurant analogy, with free choice, if you want pasta, you can choose another place to eat, no...? :)[/QUOTE]

My choice is not to vote. Why, because I do not live in Italy, and am not invested in the outcome of this election. In short, I do not have to live with the result of the choice I make.

If I was living there, I would think and feel differently.

Whatever you decide to do, DO NOT jokingly suggest that Sig. B. should be cannonised, and statues of him placed in every Piazza in the land in recognition of his achievements, Ohh, and if youre passing Francavilla, can you please cut me down from the clock tower, and errrm, bring some clothes...:o :o :eek:

[QUOTE=Sano]My choice is not to vote. Why, because I do not live in Italy, and am not invested in the outcome of this election. In short, I do not have to live with the result of the choice I make.

If I was living there, I would think and feel differently.[/QUOTE]

Actually you bring up a good point, how will the people voting from outside effect the outcome of the election? Unless you live in the country, can you really have an informed opinion?

Having said that, I live here and have no clue what is the best way froward for Italy.

If you do not decide to vote for Silvio, the sun will be switched off later today as a sign... ;)

[QUOTE=GeorgeS]If you do not decide to vote for Silvio, the sun will be switched off later today as a sign... ;)[/QUOTE]

LOL

I bet he is kicking himself over the fact he did not think of this threat.

[QUOTE=Markcarter]Actually you bring up a good point, how will the people voting from outside effect the outcome of the election? Unless you live in the country, can you really have an informed opinion?

Having said that, I live here and have no clue what is the best way froward for Italy.[/QUOTE]

I think that people living outside of the country can be equally as informed, or sometimes even better informed, than residents, if they choose to keep up with developments at home.

Given that there are some 3.5 million Italians eligible to vote outside of the country's borders, they can have a significant impact on the outcome of the election (if they so choose).

[QUOTE=Sano]I think that people living outside of the country can be equally as informed, or sometimes even better informed, than residents, if they choose to keep up with developments at home.

Given that there are some 3.5 million Italians eligible to vote outside of the country's borders, they can have a significant impact on the outcome of the election (if they so choose).[/QUOTE]

I don't know, when I was in Britain can not remember that much in the press about Italy(other than the holiday program), let alone the elections and I guess it would be even less in America.
I know you are going to say that with the internet people can stay very well informed, but I also know the news takes a slightly different slant from aboard.

[QUOTE=Markcarter]I don't know, when I was in Britain can not remember that much in the press about Italy(other than the holiday program), let alone the elections and I guess it would be even less in America.
I know you are going to say that with the internet people can stay very well informed, but I also know the news takes a slightly different slant from aboard.[/QUOTE]

The net is a good resource, but here in Ireland, in the UK and especially in the US it is possible to buy all the major Italian newspapers, so staying informed is not a problem. True, news will be slightly different abroad, but in my experience it is usually more honest if reported through expat channels (it avoids the propaganda trap to a large extent then).

One thing I have noted - this forum, which is mostly UK/European based, is mostly anti-Burlesconi. The US equivalent (Virtual Italia) is strongly pro-Burlesconi.

Do you think that is influenced by his close ties with the US around the war in Iraq? He has worked hard to build relations with the US during his time in office, and both he and GWB refer to each other as "My great friend...."

[QUOTE=Jay3gsm]Do you think that is influenced by his close ties with the US around the war in Iraq? He has worked hard to build relations with the US during his time in office, and both he and GWB refer to each other as "My great friend...."[/QUOTE]

Italo-Americans seem by and large to be fiercely loyal to the US, so would support those people/countries that are pro-US (not necessarily pro-Bush).

Burlesconi has certainly worked hard to forge a relationship with the US government, and that will work in his favour with the expat and descend population in that country.

Certainly that is the impression you get on Virtual Italia at any rate.

As for the restaurant analogy, with free choice, if you want pasta, you can choose another place to eat, no...? :)[/QUOTE]

i think u have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
the food analogy, and your reply to it, would mean that u can always
move to another country?
thats not what i meant, u can only freely vote,on whats put in front of u.
hence the reference to potatos.
its not as free as it seems,as the surgestion is either prodi or berlo WILL
win, thats your choice take it or leave it, not much of a choice really as to
who will lead the country.
its no different here in the uk, i waste my vote on the lib dems,and they had
no chance of winning the seat, or leading the country.so i may as well not
voted.
but if u don't vote, then the so called clever dicks will say "well its your own
fault they got in" !!
but sometimes your vote counts for nothing......