Keeping pace with Italian voters
GianBeppe Moreschi holds up a highly polished brown hide, disconcertingly still very alligator-shaped. 
We are in and he鈥檚 telling me how it takes two such skins to make one special pair of shoes to order.
We walk down rows of women at machines, stamping out the bits that go to make up shoes, and others sewing them together.
There are over 300 separate operations by hand to make a pair of shoes at this factory.
They charge 拢3,000 for a customised pair of alligator pumps, and don鈥檛 make a lot of profit out of it. But I am not here to talk about slippery reptiles with sharp, little teeth, but Italian politicians and the elections this weekend.
A cheap shot, I know. Most Italians have even less respect for their politicians than voters in other countries. But is it possible that could be about to change?
Flat economy
Mr Moreschi tells me that the Italian economy is flat and difficult for business people like himself who stick to the rules.
He says Italian business needs fewer regulations but ones that people will obey.
While custom-made alligator shoes are the exception, the firm is at the top end of the market, producing hand-stitched quality shoes that sell all over the world: from prestigious British customers to new shops opening up all over their growing market, Russia.
With 450 employees and a turnover of 30m euros a year, his business is obviously thriving but his is one of the few companies left in an area that used to be thronging with shoe factories.
Many have fallen victim to cheap imports from China. What鈥檚 his secret?
鈥淭here鈥檚 no secret,鈥 he tells me, 鈥渏ust following the quality established in my father鈥檚 day鈥.
His dad started the company at the end of the war and GianBeppe鈥檚 three sons are all in the business today.
He has a twinkily engaging smile and a passionate enthusiasm for the craftsmanship.
I soon find myself more interested in questioning him about the arcanery of footware production than Italian politics.
Blue Peter
I learn to recognise leather made from ostrich (it鈥檚 got goose-, or I suppose, ostrich-pimples) and discover that Peccary leather is the softest money can buy.
How do you make suede, I ask. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a Blue Peter question,鈥 a colleague observes. Well, I like to learn something new, and the answer is that leather is the outside of the animal, suede the inside.
But I drag myself back to my real purpose here. Mr Moreschi hopes these elections will make a break with the past.
At first sight this is surprising. It鈥檚 easy to see these elections as 鈥渢he same old, the same old鈥.
When I covered , I thought it was the end of the pugnacious billionaire-turned politician. But he鈥檚 back and in the lead in the polls.
, is a new leader and a good communicator but on the face of it doesn鈥檛 offer radically new policies to the last government. So why the hope for change?
After when the hard left pulled the rug, the centre left鈥檚 Walter Veltroni has said he won鈥檛 do a deal with them.
Mr Moreschi observes that, in business, 51% control is real control. Not in Italian politics.
鈥淚鈥檓 an optimist and the most important thing is that our politicians follow the right path,鈥 he says.
鈥淭he trouble is we have too many little, tiny parties and what we need is something like what you鈥檝e got in England: one on the left, one on the right and, when the need arises, they need to be able to take decisions and work together.鈥
'Chairman of the Board'
Intriguingly, there is talk of the possibility of a German-style 鈥淕rand coalition鈥.
A former ambassador-turned political commentator for Milan鈥檚 Corriere della Sera, Sergio Romano, says this is a real possibility, at least to achieve some change to the political system.
鈥淭hey all realise that Italy has a very bad political system and the time for reform is now,鈥 he told me.
Now Berlusconi and Veltroni probably agree without saying so on the need for constitutional reform, to give the prime minister the powers of his colleagues in Europe.
鈥淭he Italian Prime Minister does not have the power of the British PM, the German chancellor or the Spanish PM, he is really just a chairman of the board and nothing more.
鈥淚f you have lots and lots of parties, then governing is a very difficult task because you have to negotiate every single measure and generally you reach the lower possible level of decisions鈥.
Is this wishful thinking or could Italian politics be about to change?
I鈥檓 Mark Mardell, the 大象传媒's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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I don't think Italian politics will change, not even in smallest bits. It will be either coalition of left or right parties and in middle of their term they will face strong difficulties and the Government will fall. It is the way Italian politics works. Neither will there be new faces. In my experience as political scientist I haven't seen new faces in Italian politics for at least since mid nineties.
What is marvelous, though, is the fact that Italy is still one of biggest, richest and powerful country in Europe, This is puzzle which I encourage to research.
Vedran Obucina
Zagreb, Croatia
Italy is a sinking ship. It will rest at the bottom of the sea until people's mentality will change and only if we start being a bit like the Germans will Italy rise again.
There seems to be a growing clamour all over Europe for a style of democracy which mirrors the US/UK. Basically a two/three party system with clearly defined differences betweent the parties and when one is in charge, they really are in charge and can do pretty much as they please within the walls of the consitution.
This is a terrible mistake.
While there are advantages to having a strong government which can impliment policy set forth in their manifesto (and laterly introduced ones), this sounds eerily similar to the old saying that dictatorships have the advantage of being very effective.
Much more worrying is the potential for this style of governance to sow partisanship throughout the nation. A two party system with clearly defined differences between each party encourages the biggest party to only appeal to its base and no more. When in power there is no incentive for the bigger party to be inclusive and inevitably a large part of the population end up feeling disenfranchised.
Allowing 51% of the population to force their will upon the other 49% is not a clever long term strategy for governance. It can indeed allow a government to push through much-needed reforms, but the price, as the massively polarised US shows, can be significant to the point of irreversibly tragic.
The problem of 51% of the population forcing their will on the other 49% is that of the 鈥榯yranny of the majority鈥. The best protection against it is a written constitution to set liberal limits as to what a short-term majority can do. Without that anything is possible. A majority in the Athenian democracy voted to put Socrates to death for expressing ideas they held to be impious; ideas from the man who is the very fountain from which Western civilisation springs. Liberty should be the highest goal; democracy only second. The Americans are right to have a statue dedicated to the former in New York harbour.
You won鈥檛 find may people more critical of the EU than me, but I strongly support the European Convention on Human Rights which some British MPs wish to take us out of. Given the choice between absolute rights and absolute authority the first should always be preferred. That we are free to any degree in Britain under a Parliament that claims absolute sovereignty is due only to the restraint of MPs in exercising their absolute authority. The ECHR is a poor substitute for a body of written constitutional law in the UK setting out our rights, but it is better than nothing.
The problem on the Continent is however a weakness in democratic representation itself. Politicians invent various mechanisms in the name of democracy whose real purpose is to make it more difficult to kick them out of office. Proportional representation is one such mechanism, but the party list-system is by far the most dangerous. Britons are familiar with it only in elections to the EU Parliament where it makes it virtually impossible to replace MEPs ranked at the top of the party list. It is chiefly through this mechanism that federalist British MEPs such as Andrew Duff are able to survive indefinitely in office promoting a cause that barely any British voter desires. In other European countries, where the list-system is used in national elections too, almost the entire political establishment can get away with ignoring their electorates views safe in the knowledge they personally will be re-elected. There is a 鈥榯yranny of the elites鈥 on the Continent and qualified majority voting in the EU Council of Ministers means they have a greater weight in deciding our laws on Britain than the people we do elect.
Yes Italy is a sinking ship, but we have an incredible ability to re-emerge when we have hard difficulties. Must be a reason about that but i don't know why.
Lorenzo , Genoa - Italy
Let's talk about serious issues:
According the the 大象传媒, 'Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has claimed that right-wing female politicians are better looking than their left-wing counterparts'.
What's your opinion, Mark?
According to Silvio's criterion, I'd say that in the UK, virtually all women politicians appear to be 'left wing'. Not very gallant of me, perhaps. But, unfortunately very true.
I tend to agree with Vedran Obucina that the same faces are likely to be elected. But who will finally hold power, and by courtesy of which of the smaller parties is one of the things that makes this election interesting.
Another is to see, if Berlusconi wins, what his economic policies will be. My guess is that he will become more protectionist, more nationalist. In doing so I fear he will bring Italy from 'on it's knees' (where it is now), to 'flat on it's face'.
I think that a lot of people in both the United States and in other countries tend to overestimate the degree of polarization in the United States. The bases of the Republican and Democrat Party may well both be highly polarized, but your average voter is not all that polarized. This would be part of the reason you see the parties move toward one extreme during the primaries, appealing to the hardcore base, but then moving back toward the center during the general election, appealing to the moderate independent voters that make up the majority of the electorate. It also why you see many American voters split their vote during the election, voting for candidates from different parties for different office on the same ballot, Republican President, Democrat for Congress, Republican for State House, ect.
If any thing have 2 or 3 dominate parties probably has a tendency to push toward the middle political position of the society as in order to win and governor they need to capture close to a majority and need broad based appeal.
Glen, hi, the problem with proportional representation is that instead of 51% of the population dominating the other 49%, you have 5% of the population holding the balance of power and exerting it's will over the other 95%.
You then have an election and that same 5, 10 or 15% still hold the balance of power. Italy have come to realise this - well done to them.
Proprtional representation does not bred consensual politics, rather the opposite. Small interest groups get a disproportionate say in the running of the country
It is absolutely true that the situation here in Italy is fragile.
What puzzles many is: both the coalitions have many outlaws (yes, i mean outlaws) in their lists and, more or less, nobody talks about Antonio Di Pietro's "Italia dei Valori" which is the only outlaw-free one.
We must thank the web for providing us with some clean information, because our traditional media are really poor of information!
Vedran raises an interesting point; how could such a corrupt and disorganised country be so wealthy and productive? It shouldn't be happening! It is due to the unique creative genius of the Italians. They prosper not because of the system, but in spite of it. They would be frightfully wealthy and influential if only they would correct their collective weaknesses and faults. That is the rub! Can they clean up their system and civic life?
Personally I tend to doubt it. The habits and mentality of corruption are deeply ingrained and are not likely to be weeded out. Also the people have a volatile temperament that seems to preclude direct, straightforward solutions to problems. They would rather have comic opera posturing than real leadership- it just suits their national character more. A man with a real no-nonsense approach to problem solving would get quickly stymied over there. What else is new? Is this a surprise to anyone?
Mussolini, who was not totally uninformed about such things, felt that Anglo Saxon style governance and democracy could not work in Italy because of the highly ingrained attitude of corruption. What good are "free" elections when the Mafia is counting the votes, or paying for them? He felt that you could not eradicate this attitude from public life without a good two or three generations of totalitarianism, which would serve to "rewire" the mindset of the people. He knew that his "medicine" was highly toxic and suitable for only the sickest of patients- a sort of "political chemotherapy" if you will.
Fascism will not be happening, but then neither will effective democracy. I remain an Italo-sceptic.
For the sake of accuracy, Prodi's second government fell because of small centre-right parliamentary groups headed by former minister Mastella and former PM Dini: they pulled the rug, not "hard left" parties, as erroneously stated in the article.
As Mr. Kristensen describes a democracy it would seem to be nothing more that a periodic dictatorship. Of course, the reality is much different. It is an unusual circumstance in the US when one party controls both houses of the legislature and the presidency.
The benefit of the US system is that a government doesn't fall when it does something unpopular (and unpopular things will have to be done in Italy). It has a specific period of time to undertake unpopular steps and prove that the actions taken are correct. Should it fail to prove itself the members of the government (regardless of party) tend not to be re-elected.
At this point Italy is not so much governed as it is administered. The bureaucracy is largely unaffected by changes in government. Italy faces the difficult task of changing both.
Italy is on the downfall or rather in a free-fall.
The situation is so bad in so many different areas the majority of Italians just can't hack it anymore.
This country has become a terrible place to live. I used to love the italian "flare", now it makes ne sick.
Mark
The Prodi Government fell because of the defection of four or five centrists. Lamberto Dini and Clemente Mastella were the leading lights of yet another example of the worst of all vices in Italian politics: political opportunism and a lack of civic duty among significant sections of the political class. Dini is now with Berlusconi. Mastella was made promises by Berlusconi but in the end was not rewarded. It was not therefore the far left that voted down the Prodi Government. They helped undermine the Prodi Government by other means. The elections on Sunday are unlikely to result in a radical reform of the system nor, frankly, is there a real desire to change the system, even among those who claim to want to do so. The calculation one makes is simple: avoid the risk of change becuase I may lose more than I can. This sounds slightly mad but that is the essence of Italian politics and why change is so diffcult. This debate has been going on since the late 1980s without really major systemic reforms. Berlusconi reformed the electoral system - for the second Chamber -the Senate-and came up with a formula that more or less makes it highly unlikely that even a victory by his coalition in the lower Chamber will fail to deliver stable government becuase it is unlikely his coalition will have a stable or secure majority in the Senate. The powers of Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are more or less eqaul in Italy when it come to the legitmacy and legitimation of the Government. It is an important election but do not hold your breath for an outcome that will deliver great changes. Whatever great change happens to mean in the Italian context. Copying the Germans, French of Spanish let alone the UK systems is not the way forward. Italians will have to come up with thewir particular democratic formula. It could well be the case that the one they have is the only one that fits the political culture of the country.
Maybe I do not understand well the meaning of the expression "when the hard left pulled the rug", but if this means that the hard left caused the fall of the Government this is FALSE, it was UDEUR, a CENTRE party which caused it, now. The hard left caused the fall of the first Prodi's Government in the 90s.
About economy the real problem is not Italians lack of faith, is that they lack of money...
Italy has no major industry. Any industry still in Italy is run with government aid. Where will the money promised by the left and right come from? That's a mystery.
In the cold war era money poured in from the West and USSR respectively to the Democratic Christian (+ similar parties) and the Communists.
Now that Italy has relatively no importance on the international stage and all the money has gone, the real problems have surfaced.
No empty promises of quick return to wealth or bad mouthing China and India is going to change that for a long, long time.
The Italians need to come down to earth, tighten their belts,work harder accepting less pay and benefits and most important of all improve school and college standards drumming into the heads of the younger generations that it's what you've got in your head that counts not what you wear on your back even if it is Armani.
I really think that insulting Italy and Italians is really not the best way to understand what is the real problem.
Insulting Italy is too simple and maybe funny for people that are not here to fight every day to reset in a modern way this country.
Berlusconi lost just by a bunch of votes in 2006, after five years of government that brought ridicule to Italy. In a civil country, those five years would have brought a drubbing for the prime minister: alas, not in Italy. That was the moment when it dawned on me that Italy has no hope until Berlusconi is on the political scene.
For most Italians, politicians are a dishonest bunch and they're all the same. Whatever new idea or political project comes up, they think "yeah, they always say this and then nothing changes". So why not vote for Berlusconi, who seems more convincing?
When a centre-right leader can get away with calling The Economist "The Ecommunist", because of the negative articles against him; when a journalist that dares interrupt Berlusconi in a "Bbc Hardtalk way" is more criticized than him, who just walked off refusing to answer; when the idea that judges are all leftist who want to ground Berlusconi on false charges is an accepted truth by at least half of the country... that country has no hope. Berlusconi is just too big to be set aside, and Italians deserve him for their provincial stupidity.
p.s. I'm Italian
While there have been over 60 governments in Italy since WW II, there have been 19 parliaments. We are thus having the TWENTIETH election, not the sixtieth since 1946. This averages out to an election about every three years. Why does the 大象传媒 keep making sensationalist statements and referring to "electing a government". Governments are not elected in parliamentary systems-- they are formed after elections. Italian politics are fractured enough without ignorant statements distoring the picture. An election every three years is not so unusual-- the frequent government crises are. Please, a return to objectivity, then perhaps some understanding is possible.
Sometimes I can't realize the reasong why people talk when they don't know anything about the issue like Mythili Sarkar above.
Why, I say, why even on the Bbc site there's still people talking about stereotypes... It's just a proof of stupidity that doesn't deserve even an answer.
To conlude let me make a list.
Armani
Gucci
Pizza
Mandolino
Spaghetti
Mafia
Mamma's boys
Just know that when you talk about this things like a strong connotate of our country is just sad, because you reveal your-selves to be ignorant.