IMANE KURDI Italian politics have long baffled and entertained me in equal measure. For a start I confess I don't quite get how their system of electoral lists and party coalitions works, or perhaps doesn't work as this latest general election has shown. The comments of Peer Steinbrueck, Angela Merkel's opponent at the next German general election in September, summed up what many outside Italy have been saying: he was, he said, “appalled that two clowns have won”. The two clowns in his view are Beppe Grillo, the former comedian turned politician whose Five Star Movement won 25.5 percent of the popular vote, and Silvio Berlusconi whose unlikely comeback garnered 29.1 percent of votes for his People of Freedom alliance. Steinbrueck later added that the latter was “a clown with a testosterone boost”. How Italy has voted in "the clown with a testosterone boost" three times as its Prime Minister is something I could never get to grips with. How 29 percent voted for him yet again, despite all the corruption allegations and the sex scandals is really quite depressing. Perhaps it was the promise of money that did it as he pledged to reimburse last year's property council tax to every Italian household if he won, or perhaps it was yet another protest against austerity and technocracy. Grillo on the other hand I get. He is a clown in the old sense of the court jester, the only one at court who had the freedom to tell the truth, and who through acerbic remarks and laughter could pack a strong political punch. Comedians should be taken seriously; humor is a potent political force. It is not Grillo's fame as a comedian that built up his following, but his blog. Helped by IT specialist Roberto Casaleggio, who co-launched the Five Star Movement with Grillo, the blog became a global success. By 2007, it was the seventh most popular blog in the world. In a country where much of the media is controlled by the likes of the other clown, Grillo's blog became a rare beacon of truth in the Italian political landscape. Grillo used both humor and a taste for naming and shaming to gain first his vast readership and then launch his political movement in 2009. It is a movement and not a party; this distinction is important. The Five Star Movement is a platform that uses the power of the Internet to create the momentum to dismantle the status quo. It is first and foremost a movement against political corruption and the Italian political system. While other parties will get €159 million of public funds for the election campaign, Five Star will get nothing, mainly because it is not a registered party, but also on principle. Its members of parliament will only take 20 percent of their salaries, capping their monthly pay at a sufficiently generous €5,000 per month. The aim is to change the political system rather than govern per se. Of course neither Berlusconi nor Grillo won the election; their movements or alliances came second and third respectively. The "winners" were the center-left alliance led by Pier Luigi Bersani who got 29.5 percent of the vote, giving them a majority in the Chamber of Deputies (thanks to the Italian political system which gives the party with the most votes a bonus number of seats in order to secure a majority) but not in the Senate, where no party or alliance has won a majority. Bersani now faces the thankless task of trying to form a government with unlikely partners. Mario Monti, the outgoing Prime Minister, was unceremoniously thrashed by voters, his Centrist alliance getting just 10.5 percent of the vote and only 19 seats in the Senate, not enough to give Bersani a majority. Grillo has said he will not support any of the parties and that his politicians will vote on an issue by issue, legislation by legislation basis. No coalition for his Five Star Movement then, but that figures, after all how could a movement that is based on anti-establishment, anti-status quo, anti-austerity, anti-corruption, anti-euro, and anti a whole host of other issues that plague Italian daily life do otherwise? How can you dismantle a system if you are part of it? Keeping the freedom of opposition and the flexibility of reacting to issues as they arise gives Grillo and his followers far more power than being in a weak government. The question is will this be power to wreck or power to build? European markets reacted with panic to the Italian election results. The vote was first and foremost a resolute "basta" to austerity measures dictated by German thinking – and Angela Merkel has been one of the most consistent targets of Grillo in his blog. Whether the incoming Italian government will tow the austerity line or not remains to be seen, though most likely they will. Nevertheless the Italian election has blown a gale force wind across the entire European political landscape. There are those who think it bodes ill for the euro and that another crisis is looming. Others speak of chaos and instability. What I find most interesting, however, is what it says about how democracies might function in the Internet age. Voting on an issue by issue, legislation by legislation basis, after consulting with supporters on the Internet as Grillo's politicians have promised to do seems very much like a revolution in direct democracy in the making. — Imane Kurdi is a Saudi writer on European affairs. She can be reached at [email protected]
