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Prodi’s Priority Inversion

That foreign policy alone will not win you elections is probably an empirically valid observation from both Western Europe and North America. Hence, unsurprisingly, foreign policy usually surfaces in campaigns as a secondary or tertiary issue which most facia a facia debates between political contestants clearly prove. In light of the above today’s night will probably mark a historical exception.

Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, the alma mater of il professore, the everlasting stronghold of the left was the natural choice to host today’s victory rally of the centrosinistra. So far no surprises. Slight amazement could have been caused by Prodi’s unusually vivid tone and excitement which clearly distinguished tonight’s speech from the Professore’s usually dull and timid public appearances. However, what all were impatiently awaiting was the litany of commitments the likely future PM would announce. First, as expected, came an unequivocal rejection, a powerful No! to Berlusconi’s offer to form a great coalition. What followed was in its own right exceptional. Instead of submerging in the domestic conundrum, Prodi fired out with his foreign policy agenda. Greater engagement in EU affairs, assumption of a leadership role in the Mediterranean, increasing aid transfers to developing countries, commitment to peace and withdrawal from Iraq. Apart from the last point, all of the other foreign policy commitments are certainly not something the average voter would consider as being of pivotal importance. Especially following such a heated campaign which centred predominantly around domestic issues. Unemployment, economic growth, industrial policy came only as second on his list.

Inspired by tonight’s speech one willingly exclaims: Europa Riparte!
But let's not get deveived by words. Pure rhetoric will not automatically translate into a come-back of courageous, far-sighted, Pan European leadership. The crude reality is that visionary European politics requires strong national foundations. Given yesterday’s results, Italian foundations seem particularly fragile. Therefore, tonight’s priority inversion will probably straighten out much sooner than Prodi would want.

The Day After

What do we make of the decimal difference between l’Unione and Casa della Liberta in today’s elections?
Maybe, politics is just like a 100m sprint where 1/100's of a second decide about victory…
Or rather the parity is due to the nearly similar programme presented by the coalitions, which turned the elections into something similar to a coin flipping exercise with a 50/50 chance of heads or tails, red or blue, Prodi or Berlusconi. Given the large sample of voters (turnout of more than 80% ), the laws of probability were unsurprisingly proved right.
We could go on and explain the surrealist outcome with other banal parallels, but the German election outcome from last autumn hints an answer. Like in Germany last fall, voters in Italy turned up to the poling stations with no conviction, that any of the two parties will make a real difference. No clear mandate was given to either of the sides. The German leaders correctly interpreted this as a public call for a bi-partisan approach to solving the country’s problems. In Italy however, no similar solution is to be anticipated. The near electoral tie and the cut throat margin of advantage in the two chambers is most likely to lead partisan politics into over-time and a brutal penalty shoot-out between the two camps.

In light of what the future is likely to hold, the return of DC-like, centre politics, still remains a distant, but no longer surrealist alternative.

finito

So we’ve come to the end… Personally, I must admit to have greatly profited from the campaign— not only did I learn to swear in Italian thanks to Silvio (coglioni votano per la sinistra), but I was reminded about the cannibal practices of Chinese communists and was instructed that EU and UN observers should follow elections not only in Belarus and the Ukraine but also here in Italy.
Similarly instructive lessons stemmed from the Polish election campaign last fall. The main thrust of the campaign was the sad fait of the citizens of Gdansk and Western Poland who during WWII were forcefully recruited into the Wehrmacht.
Unfortunately, in both campaigns I did not learn much about how the respective political parties planned to rule the country. Just think what were/are the campaigns' facts the voters have based their decisions on.
Pretty frightening…