Italy's PM Renzi Resigns after NO Vote

a reply to: loam

Thank you for your reply.

While I'm for a strong executive and a strong leader, I can understand your point.
Yet, regardless of how the system is designed, IMHO a government should be able to do what it has been designed to do by a country'constitution
However the current system is in a constant situation of gridlock and the executive power is hostage to the need to always have the majority of around 1000 congressman devided into Text28 different political parties is frankly designed to be ineffective. Also note that the electoral rules are different for the lower house and for the senate, so that an executive often has a strong majority in one chamber but a weak majority in the other.

Also please do not think that current system gives representation to local constituencies (regions, municipalities etc.). In Italy congressmen are elected on the basis of colleges that represent neither cities not regions (it's not like in US where every state elects two senators, if I remember correctly), so congressmen follow the "will" of their own party rather than representing local constituencies.

To answer your second questions I think it is more a vote of protest because:

1) the vote has been presented by mr. Renzi itself as a vote for or against it's government. Many months ago mr. Renzi said he would have resigned in case of victory of No. As a result the political propaganda and the voters focused more on the opportunity to make Renzi resign rather than focusing on the merit of the vote.

2)people is poorer than 10 or 20 years ago: we (like I guess in most parts of the western world) grew up expecting certain things in term of income, retirement, employment etc. but these expectations are not going to be fulfilled.

On your last point, I really believe that the political set-up is a big burden for Italy. After all Italy's problems have not arisen in an overnight but are the result of 70 years of bad government.

We may have our cultural peculiarities but:

- unemployment: like every other country Italy suffered the economic crisis and the delocalisation of plants to other countries where labor is cheaper.

- immigration: we are in the Mediterranean close to Africa and ME. Unless we use force (that's not an option as it would not be accepted) immigrants are going to come in Italy regardless.

- corruption: we tried to get rid of it (maybe you remember "mani pulite" or operation "clean hands " at the beginning of 90s). In any case now it is not so open/huge as it was before.

My point is that an effective government could try to address those point for instance attracting companies in Italy, forcing other eu countries to accept their share of immigrants etc.
Yet I fear that the perpetuation of the system we had since WWII is not going to help to address them

Thank you

There are still positions inside the government held by Renzi's most important henchmen, in the middle of weird corruption and influence scandals.

a reply to: Flanker86

Hey the European Community may very well REALLY be in it's death knell's because they have just re-elected Trusk despite him being one of the most hated figures in the EU parliament and against the protest of many member state's.
So much for democracy when the Bilderbergers are able to dictate in that fashion and put who THEY want in charge eh?.

I have little to no knowledge of Italian politics. But if this is in anyway a blow to the globalist agenda, and Italians standing up for their freedom and soverignty, I commend them 100%.