The referendum and the great scam of the Five Stars

The real innovation introduced by Beppe Grillo and his pentastellati followers in the Italian political system is that of the joke. The comic arts serve to make fun of the citizens, to envisage miraculous remedies (remember the abolition of poverty?) which then turn out to be mephitic bowler hats. The same goes for the reduction of parliamentarians on which Italians will be called to express themselves in a referendum on 20-21 September. The grillini say that in this way 500 million will be saved every 5 years and that a blow will be dealt to the "caste", that is, to those politicians who get by by sucking the blood of Italians.

These are two false statements: if the calculations were done correctly, the savings from the cut of 345 parliamentarians would be around 280 million for 5 years. The same grills they mounted a stupid controversy about the MES which is only a problem of financial convenience as it would save 500 million a year. The so-called caste is not the one that lives in Parliament, but the one that lurks in public offices, in the judiciary, and above all in the plethora of state-owned public companies or employees of local authorities where the 5 Stars have shown a special talent in employing command posts.

The fundamental question to which all fellow citizens will have to answer in order to sensibly decide how to vote in the referendum is: given that our institutional system has serious defects, responsible for the country's over twenty-year stagnation, the mere reduction in the number of parliamentarians will lead to an improvement in the system, or Will it risk making it worse?

The fundamental defect of our institutional system does not lie in the number of parliamentarians, but in the confusion of powers between the various levels of government (which had been attempted to be remedied with the reform of Title V of the Constitution), and in the conflicts between the various powers state (legislative, executive, judicial). Parliament works in a distorted way due to old and cumbersome regulations and a misunderstood policy of seeking consensus through public donations. It would therefore be enough to change the regulation by preventing, for example, amendments to the Budget law, and committing parliamentarians to the general political guidelines on the one hand and on the control of the application of the laws and in-depth investigations on the functioning of the country on the other to have a more useful use of parliamentarians' time.

Mind you. It is by no means intended to argue that the number of parliamentarians cannot, and indeed must, be reduced. But this must take place within the context of an overall plan to improve the functioning of our institutions, otherwise there is even the risk of a worsening of their representativeness and efficiency. It is not intended to argue that with this change democracy is in danger. Unfortunately in Western countries democracy is in a crisis of popularity. Citizens, scared and worried about the future, want a strong man, think of immediate and miraculous solutions. This reduction in the number of parliamentarians, detached from any other reform, however, risks giving a further push towards the decline of democratic systems which instead should be reformed, not scuttled. 

It must be considered that the sign that the 5 Stars wanted to give to this reform is precisely that of overcoming democracy. In fact, alongside the reduction in the number of parliamentarians they had also proposed a binding mandate (all power to the secretariats of the parties) and the proactive popular referendum which would have emptied the representation of the Chambers in favor of direct democracy (of 50 voters as can be seen in the Rousseau platform).

It is surprising that some members of the Democratic Party, and among them the constitutional lawyer Stefano Ceccanti, do not see the dangers and try to justify a vote in favor of the referendum with truly bizarre arguments. Ceccanti says that the reduction in the number of parliamentarians it was in the proposals of the PD, accompanied however by the revision of the so-called perfect bicameralism, and by other changes such as the reduction in the number of regional representatives for the election of the President of the Republic.

But these other changes are not there and the electoral law is not enough to justify a constitutional adjustment, and therefore it is not quite the same thing to start building a house from the foundations or, as is being done now, starting from the roof. Furthermore, believing that once the number of parliamentarians has been reduced, other really important reforms will necessarily be made to improve the functioning of our system, given the precedents, appears to be a dangerous illusion.

Finally, the role of the PD which voted NO three times only gave its assent on the fourth vote. Ceccanti says that the three NOs were not aimed at reducing the number of parliamentarians, but at the fact that an amendment linking this reduction to the revision of bicameralism had not been accepted. But that's not a trivial matter! It was an amendment that changed the meaning of what the 5 Stars wanted. The Democratic Party made a mistake in giving in to the grillini's blackmail when the government was formed. He had to set strict conditions to make a real reform and not a simple propaganda hoax. And he should have calmly gone to call the pentastellato bluff that would not have succeeded in putting the newborn government in crisis by refusing a comprehensive and effective reform of our system.

Someone argues that voting NO in the referendum could have negative effects immediate on the government and longer term on the reform capacity of the country. From a strictly political point of view, parties, even those on the right, should consider that the YES would be a victory exclusively for the 5 Stars. As already happened in the 2016 referendum, the final about-face of Forza Italia which joined the hodgepodge of the opposites, led to the crisis of irrelevance of the party now reduced to 5-6%, and to the victory of the right and left extremists . Luckily, FI now seems to be overwhelmingly aligned with NO, and this shows that some wisdom still exists in that party.

What will the PD do where there is a strong rift in its management team? This is not the time to close one's eyes or to give freedom of choice to one's militants. Not having the courage to make a clear and forward-looking speech could cost dearly not only to the party, but to Italian democracy. Democracy certainly has its flaws. The problem is the excess levels of government and conflicts of competence between institutions.

Only starting from a review of this functioning will it be possible to obtain a change in the mentality of politicians who will have to be encouraged to set up a real medium-term strategy for social and economic change by abandoning the practice of patronage and tips, i.e., as he wrote Sabino Cassese, privateer politics, because it is no longer able to ensure a return in terms of consensus and votes. The first step is to reject the "grilla scam" and vote NO in the referendum.