“The word future can evoke uncertainty and concern. This has not always been the case and in the past it also coincided with an idea of progress. And yet, the problems are surmountable and we can deal with them successfully." The President of the Republic wishes the Italians a happy new year and launches his reassuring message on the eve of the political elections in March. He calls politics to courage and a sense of responsibility because planning the future is precisely the task to which politics is called. For this we need clear proposals, which voters are able to understand, to avoid the phenomenon of growing abstention. And of all the issues that the new parliament and the new government will have to address, the central one is that of work, which remains "the first and most important social indication. It is necessary – affirms Sergio Mattarella with simplicity and firmness – that there is some in every family”.
This is in summary the thought of the President of the Republic, his third greeting speech to the Italians, which occurs at the important moment in which the legislature dissolves and the country prepares to vote. A speech that recalled, for the relaxed and concise tone, the imprint of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi but with a more familiar tone. Here are the main points addressed by the President.
Important to have finished 5 years legislature – “As you know, I signed the decree which concludes this term of Parliament and, on 4 March next, we will vote to elect the new Chambers. It was important to respect the five-year physiological rhythm envisaged by the Constitution.” Mattarella deliberately recalled that it is an important fact but, precisely, "physiological" and therefore must be addressed without dramatization. The elections open “as always a blank page and it will be the voters and the parties who write it. I hope everyone participates."
Elections represent are at the pinnacle of democracy. On the "values, principles and rules" contained in the Italian Constitution "our democratic life is founded and unfolds. At its peak is popular sovereignty which is expressed, above all, in free elections”.
Politics have courage, do not fear the future. Politics have courage, do not fear the future. "In this time, the word future can also evoke uncertainty and concern". But “the changes must be governed to prevent them from producing injustices and creating new marginalities, the authentic mission of politics consists, precisely, in the ability to deal with these innovations, guiding the processes of change. To make the new season that opens more just and sustainable”. This is the invitation to courage that President Sergio Mattarella addresses to politics, urging it not to retreat to the present alone. "I have faith - says Mattarella - in the 99 boys who will go to vote for the first time". Sergio Mattarella recalls the same boys who were sent to war in 1918 to remark that "unlike in the past we live in a long period of peace" but also that "we cannot live in an eternal present" and that to imagine the future we must also know remember. "The vision of the future is nourished by the past" the parties must be able to look ahead and "understand the future".
Good vote with the electoral law decided by the Chambers "Together with other positive outcomes, we will go to vote with a new electoral law approved by Parliament, homogeneous for the two Chambers". The president thus underlines the importance of not going to the polls with two different voting systems for the House and the Senate, as would have happened without the OK to the Rosatellum: the electoral law would have coincided with the Italicum modified by the Consulta.
The Constitution is the toolbox of the fairest future – "The toolbox" to "make the new season that opens more just and sustainable" is "our Constitution: the institutions must feel responsible towards the Republic and the Charter urges us to recognize ourselves as a community of life". It is with these words that Sergio Mattarella concluded his greeting. Without ever naming the parties, his reference to the many proposals circulated already in the very first hours of the electoral campaign (tax reduction, basic salary, relations with Europe) is clear: impracticable and far from reality in many cases. And perhaps the 5 Star Movement and the recently approved new Statute, which in several points are in open conflict with the Constitution, have not been lacking in attention.
