Italian PM and crooked crooner, media magnate and tryant, Silvio Berlusconi, will hopefully be turfed from office within the next 48 hours.
Maybe then he'll get his punk arse thrown in gaol -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4793070.stm
Recently his behaviour has been erratic, Accusing his opponents of being “communist baby-eaters and baby-boilers” who “worship Stalin and Pol Pot”, and claiming “I trust the intelligence of the Italian people too much to think that there are so many testicles around who would vote against their own best interests.” - leading to a protest in Rome chasing him chanting “we are testicles”.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4707368.stm)
Even erotic - saying “seven out of nine” sex chat line girls he has called say they will vote for him.
His opponent, Romano Prodi, might be on to something…
“The prime minister clings to data in the way a drunkard clings to lamp-posts - not for illumination, but to keep him standing up.”
This election, ex-pat Italian citizens are voting for the first time. And soon, anyone with ONE Italian grandparent will be eligilble to be a citizen. I missed the boat this time, but in a few years will be voting in the Italian election myself!
The Italian diaspora is rising!
Giovanni says:
from the BBC-
Poll gives Italian expats a voice
Little Italy, New York
Italian immigrants in the US have a new-found voice in the Motherland
Expatriate Italians have been voting in the first general election to include candidates representing the diaspora.
Some experts say their votes could help sway the result of the contest between the centre-right PM Silvio Berlusconi and his centre-left rival Romano Prodi.
Before now, Italians wanting to vote had to return home.
But a law in 2001 allowed them not only to vote abroad, but also to choose MPs and senators standing in and for four new "overseas constituencies".
These are: Europe, North and Central America, Latin America and Africa-Asia-Oceania.
More than three million Italians living in those areas, who registered to vote, will elect 12 of the 630 MPs in the Italian lower house and six of the 315 senators.
OVERSEAS BALLOT RETURNS
Europe: 38.45%
Latin America: 51.54%
North America: 37.32%
Africa Asia Oceania: 44.07%
Total: 1,133,577
The candidates must live in their respective constituencies.
Argentina, with more than 400,000 eligible Italian voters, has the highest number of Italians living abroad after Germany.
Dario Ventimiglia, of Mr Prodi's L'Unione, is standing in Argentina as a senator for Latin America. He told BBC Mundo that his prime objective was getting rid of Mr Berlusconi as prime minister.
"Our second battle is to fight for the rights of Italians abroad, as we are treated like second-class citizens," he said.
"Relations between Argentina and Italy do not exist. Our people have been abandoned."
Roads to Rome
Italian language teacher Lorenzo Losi, who has lived in London for 30 years, is standing in the Europe constituency for a seat in the Senate.
I'm very proud of my Italian heritage - and now, finally, immigrants have a voice
Giuseppe Tramontana
He says proper campaigning and canvassing of Italian communities has not really been possible, but he has travelled to Germany, Belgium, France and Switzerland to meet as many as possible.
"For Italians abroad we have underlined our aim to improve consular services, social services for our old immigrants and in particular a big effort to improve the spreading of Italian language - courses for second, third and fourth generation Italians abroad," he told the BBC's World Today programme.
Mr Losi says overseas MPs will also have to get used to travelling back and forth to Rome.
Buenos Aires
Italian posters have decked out the streets of Buenos Aires
"It's forecast that MPs elected abroad will work in Rome Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning and the rest of the days at their constituencies," he said.
He added that the law was not passed with great enthusiasm in Italy and he thinks that although it has been a good experiment, it will need a complete review after this election.
Second generation
The elections take place in Italy on Sunday and Monday.
By Friday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said 1,133,577 Italians had sent in their votes - 42.01% of the electoral packs sent out to the constituencies.
The new system also allows second-generation Italians who have got citizenship through their parents to take part in the elections.
New York-born Giuseppe Tramontana, 32, said he grew up speaking Italian at home and regularly visits relatives in Sicily.
"I'm very proud of my Italian heritage," he told the Associated Press. "And now, finally, immigrants have a voice."
Alistair says:
Early projections aren't too flash, Geeves:
Berlusconi clings to power
By Europe correspondent Rafael Epstein and wires
Vote projections in Italy indicate the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may defy early predictions and cling to power in both houses of Parliament.
Early TV exit polls suggested the centre-left opposition would win the Upper House or Senate.
Left wing supporters were jubilant and Opposition Leader Romano Prodi was said to be preparing for a victory speech.
But then early counting suggested Mr Berlusconi's right-wing coalition would hold on to the Lower House.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1613193.htm
Giovanni says:
The Prodi Gang has taken the Lower House by 0.1%. They were one seat down in the Senate but on official projections have secured 4 of the 6 "diaspora senators" - so they'll control both houses.
Under Italian electoral law - introduced by Berlusconi himself - if you win the lower house by any margin, no matter how tiny, you get 55% of the seats in it automatically. This is so you don't have a government collapse every three weeks. Now the Right are wailing and crying that a new election is necessary because this one was too close. They can fucking wear it.
I've also decided to get my citizenship and run for the Italian senate next election.
Giovanni says:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4897994.stm
Mr Prodi said he had spoken to Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi earlier on Tuesday, but he was still waiting for Mr Berlusconi to concede.
"I am waiting for a phone call from Mr Berlusconi because this is what happens in mature democracies."
Classic!
Alistair says:
And well may we thank the secular centre-left heavens for this!
KizzL says:
Crikey says things are also freaking out in my motherland of Hungary:
Cliffhanger No. 2: Hungary
Charles Richardson writes:
Italy is not the only place in Europe to have a cliffhanger election at the weekend. The same thing happened in Hungary, another country feeling its way towards a two-party system.
In the early 1990s Hungary, like many of the other new democracies, settled down to three major parties: liberals, conservatives and social democrats. But in recent years the FIDESz party, which started out as the radical youth wing of the liberals, has morphed into a strong new conservative party under leader Victor Orban.
As a result, this election has been substantially a straight fight between the opposition FIDESz and the governing social democrats under prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. The liberals and the original conservative party, the Democratic Forum, have been squeezed out, both struggling to reach the 5% threshold for representation in parliament – they made it with 6.5% and 5.0% respectively – and both locked in as coalition partners for the major parties: the liberals with the social democrats and Democratic Forum with FIDESz.
The results of Sunday's first round were inconclusive, but the social democrats have a narrow lead, 43.2% to 42%. A large number of seats are still undecided (Hungary's system combines single-member constituencies with proportional representation), so the outcome will be determined by the second round, to be held the weekend after Easter. While the social democrats must go into the second round as favourites, the conservatives cannot be written off.
Hungary is especially interesting because it makes explicit a point that is still contested in Australia: although both have mixed records, the social democrats are clearly better friends of free market policies than the conservatives. There are fears that a FIDESz victory could lead to protectionist policies like those being pursued by the new conservative government in Poland, and strengthen the place of economic nationalism in the "new Europe".