I had long explained the way Mr. Romano Prodi won the Italian election. The slim margin with which he won offers, according to numerous international and italian analysts (from both the left and the right) little chances that his government will last 5 years.

In an open violation of the democratic debate with the now-opposition Berlusconi’s House of Freedom, the Left has elected 3 of their militants for the most important institutions: Franco Marini, ex-christian democrat, as President of the Senate; Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Communist Refoundation Party, as president of the Chamber of Deputies. And, right yesterday, former communist Giorgio Napolitano has been elected as new Italian President.

Usually, Italy granted both coalitions a role as president of the Senate and the Chamber. This time, the Left occupied all the state’s roles.

The new President of the Italian Republic, Napolitano, is a social-democrat and former communist. When he was a communist, he had openly defended the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Although he has become a social-democrat, he has never apologized for that support. Of course, he’s no more a danger for democracy, but the method he has been elected resembles that of some autocratic state.

First of all, Italy’s people have never voted the president by themselves. According to the constitution, it’s the parliament that chooses him. In my opinion, it should be the people who should decide.

Yesterday’s nomination of the new president was announced after a very strange method of voting: following the center-right’s decision not to vote for him, the left affirmed : “we don’t care, tomorrow we’ll vote for him and he’ll be the new president”. That is to say: “We don’t care if you don’t want to vote him: it’ll be only us who will decide”.

Thus, the new President represents only the will of one half of the country, that that voted the left.

Also, I am not sure that he will be ‘loved by the Italian people’ unlike the previous president Ciampi. This is because he belongs to a party – the Democratic Left, ex-communist – that gained only a mere 17% of the votes during the recent political election ( down from 30% gained in previous elections !).

Coming to the president of the Upper House, words fail to describe this dark individual. Other than being a “proud communist”, Fausto Bertinotti is a close friend of Fidel Castro. He’s often invited to have dinner with Castro in Havana.
Not only that. Bertinotti has declared, during a recent trip to China : “I congratulate the Chinese leaders for their respect of religious freedoms. Whoever claims that China is a marxist dictature, doesn’t know Marxism”.

Not less grave are his friendships with terrorists such as PKK’s Ocalan, Zapatistas’ Marcos, Palestinian ‘leaders’ (from the late Arafat to even Hamas and Hezbollah, who he calls “resistance”) and Silvia Baraldini. The latter was sentenced in the U.S. for helping the Black Panthers and other U.S. leftist terrorists.

During the election campaign, Mr. Bertinotti affirmed that he’s against the private property and intended to “limit the broadcastings of Berlusconi’s Mediaset TVs”. This has been immediately dismissed by the other parties of the left , which said that “Mediaset is a resource for Italy’s media system. We cannot shut down or limit the activities of a private TV network”. Even the more extremist communist Marco Rizzo dismissed the idea because “by doing so, the losers would be the workers at Mediaset”.

Having said that, I would like to express my disgust for seeing the president of the chamber of deputies hugging Venezuela’s despot Hugo Chavez, who expressed gratitude toward the new government. This is after some in the left had said that they “would never shake hands with Mr. Bush, one whose hands are filled with blood”.

What alleviates my disgust is the immediate future. Analysts found that a majority of Italians are already disappointed by Mr. Prodi and, were the election be held today, Berlusconi would win. Administrative and regional elections will take place on May 28,29. And, according to many sources, the positive trends visible during the April political election ( when many regions won by the left last year, this time voted Berlusconi’s House of Freedom) should be confirmed.
Let’s briefly analyze some matters of fact:

Based on the facts I reported just above, most municipalities, regions and provinces of the Northern Italy will elect right-wing governors. So might do some cities and provinces of the central Italy, including those in the red and leftist Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Campania (where the right surprisingly won many votes last month ) etc.

As for southern Italy, Sicily is almost sure to vote again for the right. Cities and provinces in Lazio, Puglia, Calabria, Molise and others also could vote mostly for the right.

I forgot the election for the new mayor in Milan. Currently, the mayor is from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. However,last year the province of Milan was won by the left.

I’m not a believer in polls, but it seems that this time they’ll be right: Milan’s new mayor is likely to be Letizia Moratti, a former Education Minister in the Berlusconi’s gov’t. To support the polls’ claims are the citizens of Milan themselves. I know lots of people from there and they confirmed that “the climate seems to be right-wing”. Some months ago, Moratti was behind the leftist candidate, but now she is leading.

As for my city, Cagliari, it has always been a right-wing city. The current mayor has enormous chances to be re-elected. Not only is Cagliari a beautiful port city, with a beach and sea similar to that of other places in Sardinia ( the color of the sea is , you won’t believe it if you haven’t visited, the same as the Maldives’ ). Cagliari has become more and more beautiful: a wonderful seaside with ongoing works to build a touristic port which will host international cruises and yatches. Foreign and Italian tourists visit the city all over the year and now we’ve an increase in American and Japanese presence. Tourists express their pleasure for the beauties of the city.

In conclusion, I wish to inform you that I am running as a municipal advisor in Cagliari. I am not so sure I’ll be elected, but am doing my best! P.S. : if you know people from Cagliari, tell them to vote for me!

I am sorry, but the links are all in Italian. I couldn’t find them in English. If you want to have a sort of understing of the current situation, just translate them by using BabelFish.