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Matteo
Renzi’s referendum trap
Italy’s
prime minister called Sunday’s vote to unite his party, secure his
job and make Italy a stronger pillar in EU. The opposite happened.
By GIULIA
PARAVICINI 12/2/16, 5:33 AM CET Updated 12/2/16, 7:10 AM CET
ROME — Italian
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi may go down in history alongside David
Cameron.
Like the former
British prime minister, Renzi called a referendum in order to
consolidate political power and — once and for a long time to come
— silence opposition within his own ranks.
Instead, like
Cameron, the forces Renzi unleashed by calling the referendum have
divided his party, the center-left Democratic Party (PD), may cost
him his job as prime minister while also doing irreparable damage to
his country’s economy and the rest of the European Union.
“If Renzi loses,
it will be a historic defeat,” said Giorgio Tonini, a PD senator
close to the prime minister. “The party will enter a deep crisis …
with a bunch of barons fighting each other — and no king.”
With two days left
before Sunday’s crucial vote, which is nominally on constitutional
reform, Renzi’s path to victory looks increasingly narrow. Although
opinion polls aren’t allowed to publish their findings so close to
the day of the vote, clandestine surveys suggest that the ‘No’
campaign remains solidly ahead, despite an intense government
campaign for a ‘Yes.’
For weeks,
government loyalists have painted apocalyptic scenarios, arguing that
a No would unleash a series of unpredictable and uncontrollable
events — not least of which would be damage to Italy’s banking
system and the ascension of the Euroskeptic 5Star Movement and the
coronation of its leader, the comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo
as Renzi’s replacement.
Some leaders in the
populist 5Star want a referendum on Italy’s membership of the
eurozone and a renegotiation of the country’s staggering public
debt. That, in turn, could reignite the euro crisis, bring about the
dissolution of the single currency zone and possibly the collapse of
the European Union.
“The
main problem is that Renzi used the constitution to split the
Democratic Party and divide the country” — Miguel
Gotor, opponent within Renzi’s own party
Even if Renzi wins
the vote and the referendum passes, a new electoral law will come
into effect that could be a boon to parties such as the 5Star
Movement by making it easier to rule without sharing power. 5Star
says it would not join or lead a coalition.
With the vote, Renzi
seemingly hoped to heal a split that’s bedeviled the Democrats
since its inception in 2007. The party was formed from the ashes of
various centre-left parties and heirs to the defunct Communist Party
and Christian Democrats which for decades governed Italy. The
political span of its constituent parts have, in the years since
then, made it a creaky contraption.
“Renzi, like David
Cameron, thought he could unite the party with a referendum and all
he achieved was to divide it more than ever,” said Francesco
Galietti, chief executive of Policy Sonar, a Rome-based political
risk consultancy.
When they go to the
polls on Sunday, Italians will vote yes or no to a single question
that sums up ambitious reforms aimed at trimming Senate powers,
reducing the number of senators and strengthening central state
powers.
Senior members of
the party, including its former leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, and
former Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema, have publicly defied Renzi
and are now openly campaigning for a No.
Renzi, who presented
himself as “il rottamatore,” the demolition man, effectively
ended the political career of both men. They in turn have accused
Renzi of trampling over the party’s core values by turning it into
a centrist machine that serves his own personal political goals.
“The main problem
is that Renzi used the constitution to split the Democratic Party and
divide the country,” said Miguel Gotor, a Renzi opponent within the
prime minister’s own center-left Democratic Party. “This is a
serious mistake that weakens both and has to be stopped.”
Gotor said that any
apocalyptic scenarios of financial disaster are conjured up by the
government and its international allies in Brussels and elsewhere.
“It was the same
with Brexit and Trump,” Gotor said. “Markets were supposed to
collapse, devastating the economy. Well, it didn’t happen. And it
will be the same in Italy.”
Meanwhile, on
Thursday evening, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that
backing Renzi’s constitutional changes would put democracy at risk
and that voting Yes would mean voting for a dictatorship.
Some within Renzi’s
closest circle are hoping that the opposition from the left of the
party might help him win support from the center-right, that is,
those voters who would not feel comfortable voting for the
anti-establishment 5Star.
Renzi has promised
to step down as prime minister if he loses the referendum. If that
happens, Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella, after the usual
rounds of consultation with political leaders, will appoint a
caretaker government whose mandate will be limited to approving a new
electoral system and ensuring a steady financial course.
Renzi, in a last
attempt to gain votes, is barnstorming the country, especially in
crucial areas in the south. He is expected to close out his campaign
in Florence on Friday night.
By early Monday,
Italy — and the rest of the EU — should know if Renzi will go the
way of Cameron. One thing to watch for is voter turnout, said one of
the prime minister’s top aides.
“The undecided
might still turn the game around.”
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These
six elections are set to change Europe forever
Inspired
by Donald Trump, the right, in all its varieties, is on the march.
Here are the key election results to look out for in 2017
Sean O'Grady
As far-right groups
across Europe become normalised and more popular than at any time
since the end of the Second World War, a series of votes set to be
held across the continent could spell doom for the European Union by
this time next year. They could even make Brexit irrelevant if
far-right parties succeed in restricting freedom of movement of
people in the EU, holding back migration to Europe and hastening the
break-up of the eurozone.
Inspired by Donald
Trump, the right, in all its varieties, is on the march. The left is
being routed. Here are the key election results to look out for.
4 December 2016:
Italian referendum and the rerun of the Austrian presidential
election
Most attention this
weekend will be focused on the Italian referendum, which seeks to
make Italy easier to govern and reform. But the Prime Minister,
Matteo Renzi, has made the cardinal error of threatening to resign if
his proposed changes are rejected. Meanwhile, the far-right Five Star
Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S), led by a former comedian, has
campaigned vigorously against the proposed changes.
Before a ban on
publishing opinion polls a few weeks ago, the “No” camp was
ahead. If that turns out to be the result, and Italy is plunged into
a fresh political crisis, then her fragile banks could suffer yet
another crisis of confidence.
If that continues
then it would be beyond the means of the Italian state to save them;
indeed the Italian Treasury would be unlikely to be able to sell its
bonds to the domestic banks and be forced to go to the EU and the
European Central Bank for a Greek-style rescue package.
Trouble is, the
eurozone’s solvent members – Germany, the Netherlands and Finland
– are running out of the financial means and the political
willpower to subsidise their southern neighbours. With a €4
trillion banking system, and with a GDP not far off the UK’s, Italy
is a nation that is both too big to save and too big to fail – and
big enough to wreck the euro.
The Austrian
presidental election is a rerun occasioned by some technical failings
in the first poll in May. The result then was extremely tight between
the Green candiate Alexander Van der Bellen, just ahead on 50.3 per
cent, and the candidate of the far-right Freedom Party, Norbert
Hofer, on 49.7 per cent.
Though only a
ceremonial post, a Hofer victory would represent an even more
significant result for the anti-migrant Eurosceptic right in a
eurozone and EU member state – the first time a representative of
the far right had been elected head of state or government since the
Second World War. By contrast, the once dominant Social Democrats
trailed on 11 per cent in the May election. Hofer is the favourite to
prevail next week.
15 March 2017: Dutch
general election
Once merely a noisy
and unpleasant fringe grouping, the “Party for Freedom” (Partij
voor de Vrijheid, or PVV), led by Geert Wilders, is just about
leading the polls in the Netherlands. Because the Dutch party system
is so fragmented, the PVV can do this with just 28 per cent support,
a point or two ahead of the conservative governing party, the VVD.
The elections will
be contested on the grounds of the economy, migration and the
healthcare system. Always a mildly Eurosceptic nation, the
Netherlands looks set to tilt further in that direction. Expect less
support for the Eurozone’s weaker members, more pressure to
restrict migration and more pressure on minorities.
4 May 2017: British
local elections
These are unlikely
to make much of a cross-continental impact and, ironically, might see
a little recovery by the now leading pro-European mainstream party,
the Liberal Democrats. Still, the Conservatives and Ukip seem likely
to have a good showing, and will take the results as a confirmation
of the Brexit referendum vote. A poor showing by Labour would also
add to the chances of a Tory win at an early general election, again
which would in effect endorse Brexit.
7 May: French
presidential election
Polls suggest the
conservative Francois Fillon will “trump” the Front National’s
Marine Le Pen, but after recent upsets many are nervous. Even if Le
Pen doesn’t win, if one in three French voters decided to back her
it would be an extraordinary result, and one unthinkable not so long
ago. Again, it will add to the anti-European, anti-euro, anti-migrant
mood sweeping the West.
22 October 2017:
German elections
This is the last
date for the contests, which could be held as early as 27 August.
Either way, Angela Merkel looks likely to embark on another term in
office. But the far right Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD) is polling
at 13 per cent – easily sufficient to secure seats in the Bundestag
and be a constant source of agitation against the EU on issues such
as subsidies to Greece and Italy and, of course, migration.
Even Chancellor
Merkel would have to bow to changing popular opinion, both in her own
political grouping – the Bavarian wing of the Christian Democrats
are more hostile to migration, for example – and in the nation as a
whole.
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