2016 will be the year of sport: from 10 June to 10 July the European Football Championships will take place in France and from 5 to 21 August the Olympic Games in Brazil, the first in history in South America. It will be a summer full of sports: for three months there will be something for all tastes.
But, beyond sport, 2016 will be the year of truth for Italian politics. It will be a watershed year. Either Renzi or the crisis (not only of the prime minister and the government but of the legislature). Either reform or chaos. The big cities are expected in the spring from local elections: votes are cast in Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Cagliari, Naples. The mayor is not the prime minister and the administrative vote is not necessarily the photocopy or the antechamber of the political vote but there are those who do not see the importance of an electoral test like the one in the spring. However, the real watershed of the year and of Italian politics will be another: that of the October referendum on the constitutional reform of the Senate. Matteo Renzi left no room for doubts: “Either I win or I leave. If I lost the referendum it would be the failure of my experience in politics”.
The reason for Renzi's choice without return is clear: if he wins the referendum, the prime minister obtains the definitive popular legitimacy that the triumphant European elections only partially gave him and takes home the consecration of his reform policy, also in view of the subsequent general political elections. If, on the other hand, he loses, he goes home and, together with him, his government, the whole strategy of the reforms and the very fate of the legislature leave the scene, since it is unimaginable that a new government can be formed without Renzi's Democratic Party. In short, an earthquake of the highest degree on the Mercalli scale.
Is it a wise choice for the prime minister to politicize the referendum to the extreme or is it a gamble? The political columnist for "Repubblica", Stefano Folli observed the other day that it is a "logical" choice because Renzi will play on "a very favorable field" since "even his most tenacious opponents doubt that there is a majority of Italians willing to vote No to the abolition of the Senate and the Cnel”, although “ten months are long and the road (which leads to the referendum) is full of uncertainties”.
Even the political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte wrote in "Il Sole 24 Ore" that "the outcome is not entirely obvious" but "judging by the data we have in hand now Renzi has a good chance of winning his bet": the the latest polls give the victory of the Yes to the constitutional reform percentages ranging between 55 and 68% of the interviewees.
However, the outcome of the battle is not obvious not only because the current polls are cold and obviously do not take into account the political climate in which the popular consultation will be held, but because in reality the referendum, rather than on the merits of the reform of the Senate, will be about Renzi, his leadership and his reform policy. Of course, it will be difficult for Forza Italia to campaign for the No after having contributed to building the reform of the Senate and it will be difficult for Grillo and his supporters to fight against a reform that supports the Italicum from which the Grillini have everything to gain. But coherence, as we know, is not a widespread virtue in politics and there will be no shortage of temptations to give Renzi a shove.
The prime minister has certainly taken all these risks into account but, if this is the case, there is only one way to broaden consensus on the constitutional reform which is to inform citizens in a simple and clear way about the benefits that the reform brings by reducing costs of politics and simplifying the decision-making process but above all consists in making everyone perceive that the reform of the Senate is only the antechamber of a strategy of reforms on which the modernization of the country largely depends, greater growth of the economy and the well-being of the Italians.
A hard-to-die commonplace says that whoever carries out the reforms loses the elections, but this is not the case or it is not always the case, if one has the time to make people understand the advantages that they bring to the majority of citizens. After the fiery and often senseless controversies that accompanied the approval of the Jobs Act and the Good School, it was enough for the time for their application to arrive for many companies but above all many young people and many of the 100 teachers who have finally emerged from precariousness to understand that the benefits of those reforms infinitely outweigh their imperfections and feared risks.
2016 can therefore become, also through the referendum, the year of the definitive relaunch of Italy and of the consecration of the policy of change in stability, but on condition that the bar of reform is raised immediately and with renewed vigor.
