Italian Elections: Why Democracy Lost, and Not Just Because of the Far Right
Giorgia Meloni speaking at CPAC, 2022
Since the beginning of this summer’s electoral campaign, media outlets from all over the world began to speculate that Italy was about to elect its most right-wing government since the Second World War. Concerns arose about whether a government this far to the right might be a threat to Italian democracy, and hence European democratic stability. But the far right is not the only thing to worry about. Italian democracy is showing more structural signs of weakness from many different sides: low public engagement and alternating technocratic and populist tendencies.
In fact, what many headlines failed to note is that this is also the first time since 1948 that the Parliament represents less than half of the Italian population. These elections had in fact the lowest turnout in Italian democratic history, with 36.6% percent of the eligible population abstaining. Considering all Italians and not just the voters, the current Parliament only represents 49.3% of the country. With these numbers, even if any other coalition had won, serious criticism would have been necessary.
There are significant flaws in the Italian voting system, which prevent many from voting outside their city of residence. This policy means that many people who work or study away from home have no option but to travel to their registered voting address. Not to mention second-generation Italians, for whom getting Italian citizenship, and hence voting rights, is a long and winding road. A system that makes voting harder even for those who care about politics is not a good start. It shows how the ruling class cares very little about incentivising a healthy and conspicuous democratic participation. More importantly, those who are most likely to be excluded are the youth and discriminated minorities such as immigrants.
This dramatically declining trend of voter turnout, however, cannot be simply explained by blaming bureaucracy alone. The lack of interest in the public sphere goes hand in hand with an increasingly widespread disillusionment about the democratic process. The main political leaders had a stroke of genius and thought that the best way to revive young people’s interest in politics was opening a TikTok account. It was an invaluable source of funny memes, but also a pathetic display of paternalism. There were more political leaders on TikTok, than at environmentalist and LGBTQ+ marches, leaving even the more politically-involved students and teenagers with very little representation.
When there is so little participation in the public sphere, politics can fail by degenerating towards opposing but equally worrying trends: technocracy and populism. As leftwing politician Nicola Fratoianni rightly pointed out, rightwing populism stealthily provided consolation from the multi-folded crises of our times using national, religious and cultural identity. For many voters, the fact that Brothers of Italy (FDI) is a direct evolution of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a postwar party led by the remaining fascist élite, did not really matter. What mattered the most was that their leader, Giorgia Meloni, was perceived as the last attempt to have a coherent honest leader that does politics with the people.
Meloni was the most visible critic of the national unity technocratic government led by former ECB president Mario Draghi. However authoritative and respected Draghi was, the idea of a government where the different values and viewpoints of political parties are subordinated to mere administration and policymaking is dangerously flawed. Technocracy implies that problem solving is more important than an allegedly misleading ideology. Voters are asked to be responsible, instead of participating. Leaving politics only to “the best'', as Draghi's ministers were called by the Italian press, undervalues the active citizenship dimension of politics, as if suggesting that policymaking was not just the tip of the iceberg in a world of activism, interacting ideas, needs and political passion.
The failures of the Italian political class, which contributed in exacerbating voters’ disillusionment, turned into a need for technocracy. In the meanwhile, the political void was filled by populism’ ability of providing enemies and easy answers, instead of nurturing a marketplace of ideas. Which is even worse if we care about a healthy political environment. Upholding technocracy as an alternative to populism is a choice we should not need to make. What we need is real politics as a response to both.