The resounding failure of five referendums in Italy: only 20.9% voted and they were canceled

The summoned were 51 million Italian citizens, of which 4.5 million resident abroad, but only the 20.9% voted “yes” or “no” in the five referendums of justice which required 50% participation to be valid.

Was the worst performance in the last 30 years in the votes of referendums. Immersed in the indifference and difficulties of so many voters to whom they presented themselves options difficult to understand, the system limps conspicuously and this Monday, the day after the votes, there are those who reflect whether it is not necessary to search reforms to revive.

It is evident that the derogatory character of referendums contributes to confusion that leaves the polling stations empty from seven in the morning to eleven in the evening, so many are the hours in which the polls remain open.

This Monday we began to talk about the topic timidly in the television and radio broadcasts that follow the counting of the votes on Sunday in 978 municipalities in which 9 million Italians were summoned. The priority count has been assigned to the five failed referendums which took place at dawn across the country.

The proposals of some specialists have evoked the sensational failure of the referendum and the need to study a modification of the exclusively derogatory system: it is urgent to give another perspective to these almost dying questionson pain of succumbing to general indifference.

The referendums on justice failed in the first place because the proposals to repeal the norms of the topics consulted (“yes”), have unified the “no” in the simple decision of millions of Italians let it be fine avoiding the referendum.

The basic question is that it is Parliament that must legislate on judicial matters, which are very complex. A “yes” or a “no” they are insufficient due to the complexity of the issues raised in the referendum.

The loser

The results recorded a loser with name and surname, the leader of the center-right League Matteo Salvini, That it was he who launched the referendums in alliance with the small Radical Party.

Salvini had long ago ignored the fate of the referendums, which the polls have shown a fatal fate for the lack of interest of citizens.

Sunday and this Monday, Salvini has deserted the political stages, which remained in the hands of their collaborators. Right arm on the referendum question, the vice president of the Senate Roberto Calderoli held a press conference at the Lega headquarters in Milan.

Calderoli said that “I have no problem saying that what happened is the consequence of a plot for which the quorum of half plus one of the votes expressed was not reached. The strategy was to extend “total silence”.

What happened in the municipality?

The panorama in the 978 municipalities that also voted on Sunday and whose results will be known very late this Monday, has shown – according to estimates – that the center-right parties have about 45% support At least by the Italians.

In most controversial mayors, the candidates of the “right” largely prevailed in the first round and it is believed that the candidates from Genoa, Palermo and L’Aquila will succeed more than 50% plus one of the votesmaking round two useless.

In Genoa, the mayor Marco Bucci, with the support of Lega Salvini, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, won re-election according to the data in the “tables of champions”, which reflect the statistical universe in the municipality , between 51 and 55% of the votes.

In Palermo, the capital of Sicily, Roberto Lagalle won between 43 and 47%, supported by the three center-right allied parties. In L’Aquila the center-right could win in the first round. Pierluigi Biondi collected between 49 and 53% of the votes.

The biggest surprise was registered in Verona, a city in northern Veneto with a right-wing tradition, where the former Roma midfielder, Damiano Tommasi, has garnered between 37 and 41% of the votes of the center-left coalition and has a good chance of winning the mayor due to the split between the right-wing forces. The former mayor Flavio Tossi and the outgoing mayor Federico Sboarina each got 27-31 votes, splitting the right-wing coalition.

The center-left candidate in Parma michele guerra he got 40-44% in the first round and can win the second because right-wing candidate Pedro Vignati only got 29-45%.

Rome, correspondent

ap