Matteo Renzi faces day of reckoning with reform referendum

“Franco, do whatever the Madonna would do, offer them fried fish, take them out on a boat, on a yacht, do whatever the f*** you have to do, but don’t turn up without a single vote less than you promised.”

The speaker is the colourful Democratic Party president of the region of Campania in southern Italy, Vincenzo De Luca. His words, reported by the independent daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, were addressed last week to a gathering of 300 local government figures.

The “vote” in question refers to Sunday week’s constitutional reform referendum.

De Luca's words indicate something of the sense of anxious expectation with which Italian, and indeed much international opinion, awaits this vote. In the wake of the protest-driven Brexit and Trump victories, are we heading for a glorious hat-trick?  Is this really an armageddon that might pave the way for the end of the euro, if not the entire European Union project?

It is understandable that international opinion is getting very hot under the collar about this vote. The reason for this concerns Italy's dynamic, 41-year-old prime minister Matteo Renzi, leader of the Democratic Party. He has staked so much political credibility on winning this referendum that economists, the markets, foreign observers and others are worried about a major Italian "wobbly", should he lose.

Resignation threat

Initially, Renzi heaped this pressure on himself by threatening that if he lost the vote, he would resign. With opinion polls, suggesting that he might indeed lose, Renzi has wisely withdrawn that promise. Yet, during an intense autumn campaign, he has repeatedly claimed that he is in politics only to enact fundamental change such as this. Were he to lose, there could be serious political fallout.

Essentially, the referendum calls for the elimination of Italy’s two-chamber parliamentary system, a reduction in the number of parliamentarians (currently 945) and more central government authority over regional affairs.

Many would argue that a country that has seen 63 governments in the past 70 years, in which antiquated bureaucratic procedures stifle business growth, in which clientelism rather than meritocracy holds sway in the labour market and in which corruption, not to say organised crime, negatively impact on the national economy, is a country in need of radical reform.

Yet a motley crew of opposition forces comprising the Five Star Movement, the federalist Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia are all calling for a No vote.

All three parties favour an Italian exit from the euro, and there are concerns that a defeat for Renzi on Sunday week could usher in a Eurosceptic government in place of the Democratic Party. Any move towards the EU exit door by Italy could place the entire European project in jeopardy.

Political opportunism

While it can be argued that the opposition’s No is political opportunism, the same can hardly be said of the 56 constitutionalists who last April also pronounced themselves in favour of a No vote.

They and others argue that Italy clearly needs reforms, but not these reforms. Former president of the constitutional court, Prof Gustavo Zagrebelsky, has argued that, linked to the government's new electoral law, know as the Italicum, the proposed constitutional reforms create the conditions for "a swing from democracy to oligarchy".

The Italicum, which came into force in July, awards bonus seats to the winner of parliamentary elections, guaranteeing it an absolute majority for a five-year term.

Critics also argue that the proposed senate reform creates a new, less democratic body of 100 (down from 315) senators who are nominated by regional councils rather than elected. Furthermore, the new senate would retain some ill-defined legislative powers.

The No campaign argues that the overall reform package will create a parliament in which approximately 66 per cent of deputies are nominated by their parties, rather than elected by citizens.

In short, the critics argue that the Renzi reforms undermine the fundamentally pluralist and democratic principles of Italy’s 1948 constitution, with its series of checks and balances, aimed then at preventing the return of Mussolini-style dictatorship.

The “protest” vote, however, is unlikely to be worried about the 1948 constitution nor the proposed changes to 47 of its articles. The protesters may vote No because they live in an Italy of 40 per cent youth unemployment, where 4.5 million people are under the poverty threshold, where the average salary is €1,560 per month and where the national debt of €2.2 trillion has never been higher.

Will the protest vote argue that, almost three years after he took office, not much has changed under Renzi? Will a majority of the electorate conclude that Renzi, for all his dynamic energy, tweets and clever soundbites, is just another member of the caste, another insider, and accordingly vote No?