sabato 3 dicembre 2016

Is Italy's party politics doomed?

A few days are left to a watershed event that could reshuffle cards within Italian party politics. Matteo Renzi’s outliving seems to be depending on the confirmation of the constitutional amendments on a national referendum expected for the next 4 December. The question at stake is crucial. Not only the constitutional reform has been promoted by his Democratic Party-led government, but Mr. Renzi has been standing up in first person for the past three years, both seizing the spotlight and grabbing the main political debates. The resulting sense of open personalization would entail – in case of a failure, that is a NO-vote victory – if not an immediate resignation, just an attempt to go on after broad agreements with other main forces in Italian party politics, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in primis, according to rumours.