Don't come and tell us stories. Outside of a real constitutional reform project focused on the diversification of the functions of the House and the Senate, the grillina equation fewer parliamentarians = more democracy is a hoax as big as a house, which doesn't stand up and which has all the flavor of a colossal deception of the citizens. Just as the idea that with fewer parliamentarians the chambers work better is a hoax: without overcoming equal bicameralism, exactly the opposite is true. This is why, if there weren't fears for the growth of the pandemic and the consequent restrictions in the public life of all of us, the constitutional referendum of 20-21 September would be an extraordinary event for Italian democracy. Above all, it would be an unmissable opportunity to finally clarify the unbearable mystifications that have surrounded the reduction in the number of parliamentarians from the outset. Reduction, it should be remembered, wanted by the Five Stars and suffered out of cowardice or timidity by other political forces, even by those - such as the Pd which he had voted against three times in Parliament – who out of tactical opportunism have disavowed their initial orientations by surrendering to the grillini, whose scant consideration of the value of parliamentary and democratic institutions has been repeatedly proven.
Let's start from the substance of the question and from the object of the popular consultation: it is true or not that the reduction of parliamentarians Does it increase democracy as the Five Stars claim? There is no empirical evidence that this thesis, which clashes with the most basic common sense – how can a parliamentary system in which the representatives of the people are halved be considered more democratic? – has a real foundation. But above all there are two crucial elements that a correct assessment of what is at stake cannot forget. The first is this: for the efficiency of a parliamentary system, is the number or the functions of the parliamentarians themselves more important? Quantity or quality? If you do not diversify and organize the work of deputies and senators better, it will not be the fewer number of parliamentarians that will improve the quality of the activity of the Chambers and of the entire legislative process, on the contrary it is very likely that paralysis and disorder will grow, as the former President of the Chamber of Deputies, Luciano Violante, was reported in La Repubblica on Friday 21 August.
Second question: the reduction of parliamentarians is not a taboo and under certain conditions it can be constructively discussed, but if it remains hanging on nothing and is not accompanied by a reform that overcomes equal bicameralism and an electoral law that combines stability and representativeness of the elected bodies and that it is not designed only to wipe out the smallest or most uncomfortable groups becomes a high-risk boomerang for the proper functioning of democracy. This was the agreement underlying the Conte 2 government but today there is no new electoral law and without it the whole scaffolding that had induced the Democratic Party to give, perhaps too rashly, the go-ahead to reduce the number of parliamentarians, giving the Five Stars an unexpected victory without a fight.
That is why, whatever the final outcome of the popular consultation in September, openly vote NO in the referendum today it is an act of democratic dignity and of open dissent against the populist drift that has led to the hasty and simplistic reduction of the elected representatives of the people in Parliament. But, beyond the merits of the issue at stake, voting NO in the referendum is not just giving a pickaxe to the populism that reigns in the country and which has already done far too much damage, but it is giving a halt to mediocre politics made up of tactics, opportunism, hypocrisy and transformation that, instead of facing populism head on in its colorful versions, thinks of taming it by pampering it and finally giving up.
Sorry to say but this seems exactly the recent vocation of the Democratic Party, of the main Italian reformist party: or rather, not of the entire Democratic Party but of the wing that recognizes itself in the disappointing leadership of the secretary Nicola Zingaretti, who may be a good local administrator but certainly not a leader. Politics, as we know, thrives on compromises, which are the salt of democracy when they are the expression of the clear search for a point of balance between different forces and theses and only indifference or blind radicalism do not understand this fundamental postulate. But the search for compromises and agreements, which in their best form are the bread of politics and democracy, cannot take place at the expense of the identity of a political force, especially one of reformist origin.
Whether to defend the current balance of government with the grillini or future agreements for the Quirinale, a party does not set a limit to possible compromises and is ready to suffer everything, it means that that party has lost its soul and is ready to sacrifice its tradition and history on the altar of immediate convenience and mediocre tactics. handing them over and handing themselves over to the wavering upstarts of politics as the Five Stars are, beyond all the possible present and future somersaults.
Seeing the militants of a fundamental party like the Democratic Party walk with their heads bowed and remove from their thoughts a referendum on a reform that they never wanted in their hearts hurts the heart and - yes - it hurts democracy. This is why voting NO in the referendum also means launching an equivocal signal against bad politics, of which the hasty reduction of parliamentarians is only the tip of the iceberg.
