Understanding Italian voters.

I am going to try and explain my foreign friends what happened during the last elections in Italy.

Actually, if I was not Italian, I would probably not give a damn about this whole mess, contented with the knowledge that the place maintains its constant instability (an oxymoron, I know, but there is no shortage of morons here).

But really there is some logic in what is happening here.

We have cast our votes and have ended up with a parliament split in three. A third of the Italians have voted for Berlusconi and his xenophobic sidekicks. A third has voted for the opposing Democratic Party, and the remaining third for the explosive 5 star movement, inspired by the comedian Beppe Grillo.

Since none of these forces seem compatible with the other two, we are now gridlocked. But how did it come to this?

Well, Berlusconi enjoyed a wider support in the past. His negligent tenure at prime minister and his never ending scandals and crimes have alienated a lot of his right-wing electors, and he was left with only the residual support of the fanatics and the sub-humans who would follow him whatever he does or say. Surprisingly, this “residual” is around a quarter of the Italians. This is very embarrassing for me and for all Italians who have any kind of relation with the outer world.

The Democrats should have attracted part of this hemorrhagic of consensus, but they were unable to do so. This was due in part to the fact that they are not very good at communicating to people who are not well educated and well-off in the same time, so they should consider it a miracle they actually ended up being the most voted ones, although by a narrow margin. On top of this, their public and private behaviour was not different enough from that of the “Berlusconians” to grant them any recognition of good ethical or moral standard. The fact that their well-mannered, competent, although rather unattractive representative, Bersani, did not have enough media appeal is in my opinion a minor factor in their failure to clinch the expected majority.

Enters the 5-star movement of Beppe Grillo. They are new, they are young, they are not corrupted (yet) and their political platform is a heady mix of populist claims and advanced, legitimate requests. People have flocked to this new proposal, nauseated by the usual parties.

There you go. We had other minor parties, some of which had some merit, but they got squashed by an election system which has been designed by a media tycoon so it is all about mass-media control.  

What is going to happen? Actually I have no clue. I know what should happen, but in this country logical consequences rarely materialize.