It is no coincidence that Silvio Berlusconi has chosen to announce that he will not go to vote in the referendum immediately after having said that the Government will pass the enabling law on the tax authorities before the summer and that this year's economic maneuver will be around three billion. In this way, on the one hand, he tried to remove as much as possible the political scene from the consultation on Sunday and Monday, on the other, to re-launch the optimistic image of his government after the hard defeat suffered in the local elections.
The fact remains that the grim guard of public finances mounted by Minister Tremonti hangs over the fiscal reform (“a taxman for the summer” ironically commented by the secretary of the Democratic Party, Bersani), and everything in the referendum will depend on whether or not the quorum is reached. For the consultations of next Sunday and Monday (on nuclear power, privatization or otherwise of water supply services, and legitimate impediment) to be considered valid, 50% plus one of those registered on the electoral lists must go to vote: approximately 27 millions of Italians, depending on how the foreign vote mess will be resolved: ballots with a different question from the one ratified by the Cassation have been voted on nuclear power, and in many cases – the Radicals accuse – the ballots would not even reach the voters.
Berlusconi – whom the "Economist" described yesterday, dedicating the cover to him, as "the man who screwed over an entire country" – fears that the quorum will be reached, so much so that in recent days he has tried to take cover by defining the referenda "useless" and giving its supporters freedom to vote. But at the same time he wanted to insist, announcing his non-vote, on the right that voters would have not to go to the polls. The same reasoning was used by other authoritative centre-right leaders or government ministers. A more than legitimate reasoning, given that it is also a right to waive the exercise of one's right. But also in stark contrast to what the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano had said in recent days, when he was keen to let it be known that once again, as always, he would do his duty as an elector.
Sunday and Monday it will be possible to verify to what extent the premier's words are in harmony with what the Italians will do. Because it is true that bringing 27 million voters to the polls is a very difficult undertaking (at least in the light of previous and close experiences), but it is equally true that never before has there been an extraordinary desire to participate (just look at the word of mouth on the Internet) democratic. It is worth remembering that in 1991, despite the invitation by Craxi and the League to go to the beach, 62% went to the polls and in the 1974 referendum on divorce more than 33 million Italians voted, equal to almost 88% of the entitled.
Other times. The electoral campaigns were very tough, but the system was not yet in vogue, bordering on the trick, according to which, in order to assert the reasons for no, it was better not to go to the polls in order to be able to add one's non-vote to that of physiological abstention. Which is why anyone who collects the signatures needed to call a referendum today must then undergo a handicap race. A handicap that could now be canceled only by an extraordinary desire to regain possession of the right to vote on the part of citizens.
