Italy’s referendum flop sends a warning to the left

21 comments

1. I did vote. But too many didn’t.

2. Voting is compulsory in Australia. Sounds a bit authoritarian but it works. You get a small fine for not voting.

3. A bit of context here. The main opposition party (the Democratic Party) campaigned hard to vote YES to all 5 of the questions. The ruling coalition instead told its base to stay at home. None of the questions reached the minimum turnout threshold. In particular the 5th one, about lowering the number of years before being able to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 to 5, received something like 40% of NOs, many coming from voters of the Democratic Party.

   So how is the left taking this huge blow? The left is celebrating this flop as some kind of victory. In conclusion the referendum may have sent a signal, but the left parties are too high on themselves to realize that

   EDIT: changed some phrasing

   EDIT 2: I barely commented with “this is what the ruling coalition wanted, this is what the opposition wanted. These are the results. This is how the opposition reacted”. I didn’t even express an opinion on the 5 points of the referendum. Yet, the focus moved immediately from the results of the referendum to me being a fascist because of my nickname. I want to say thanks to those redditors for showing that the opposition is indeed out of touch and for showing why Meloni hasn’t lost a single vote despite 3 years of scandals sorrounding the incompetence of her government

4. Unfortunately, referenda here in Italy rarely clear the 50% turnout threshold. The very contentious one in 2011 on nuclear energy, public water and some judicial reforms relevant to the strongly perceived corruption of the Berlusconi era had a turnout of just 54.7%.

   As such, I don’t think that the current result sends warning messages to anyone… which is sad because of course our political parties, and especially those in the left, really need to have a shakeup.

5. A warning to the left? When was the last time a referendum was won in Italy? Even who propose them almost do not believe, they are more used as political tools.

6. This has nothing to do with low voter turnout.

   This has to do with some leftwing political forces still being surprised after 10 years, that a majority of citizens, on both sides of the aisle in western europe, DON’T want more, or easier, immigration:

   > Still, around 14 million Italians went to the polls over Pentecost to vote on five issuesExternal link, four of which aimed at reversing parts of a 2010 labour market reform, while the fifth sought to reduce the residency requirement for Italian citizenship from 10 to five years.

   > The result revealed an inconvenient truth. While between 86% and 88% of those who voted backed the first four questions, only 65% voted in favour of the citizenship referendum.

   Scroll down [here](https://www.democracy.community/stories/italians-set-vote-citizenship-and-workers-rights) to see the 5 points in this referendum.

   The first 4 questions, the ones that got up to 88% support, were about improving labour-rights.

   The 5th was about halving the required time for living in italy before one can be granted citizenship, from 10 to 5 years. Would anyone mind telling me what points 1-4 and point 5 are supposed to have in common? Or why they should be on the same referendum?

   Come on, anyone? No? Noone? Well, can’t say I am surprised.

   The people want labour rights. They want taxing the rich. They support health care, social politics, transparency. They support LGBT rights, they support DEI, they support food safety and vaccines. They support better city planning, less SUVs and better public transport. They support building a society that works for the people instead of the capital.

   But you won’t get the political power to do ANY of that, if you constantly try to push for deeply unpopular politics at the same time. All the right wingers need to do to win then, is say “No.”

   From the article (emphasis mine):

   > For political scientist Giorgio Malet this is a “message to the left”, a sign that **part of its own electorate** opposes a more liberal citizenship law.

   Here’s to hope that they finally get the message, in Italy and elsewhere. Because if they don’t, the right wing forces in Europe will continue to become stronger.

7. For most complicated issues referendums are dumb anyway. In a representative democracy you choose representatives who, assisted by their civil departments, are usually far better able to reach a grounded decision then the uneducated masses.

8. The left in italy need to touch grass, stop doing stupid infight, and maybe have a political program that isn’t “they are bad vote us!”

9. It’s pretty shameful for a Government doing anything to slam and lough at a referendum. Meloni just don’t want to hear people‘s will

10. What were the questions exactly?

11. Nah, it’s because Italians do not vote and referendums need a threshold. People just can’t be bothered to care unfortunately.

12. Referendums are inherently bad fot this reason IMO and if you use them as a mechanism you should enforce voting on the matter

13. It is insane that you can be born in a country, spend your whole life there, only speak the local language, know no other home or culture, and yet not be considered to be from that country.

14. The solution is simple: people that don’t vote shall be fined.

15. I think it makes sense to combine legislative elections with referenda, in countries where political apathy is high referenda are unlikely to reach 50%.

    Some smaller countries e.g. Belgium and Luxembourg have compulsory voting but enforcement is generally pretty lax.

16. Is the Italian left in the room with us?

17. Nel 2008 si parlava di “nuovo corso”. Nel 2013 di “rottamazione”. Nel 2018 di “ricostruzione”. Nel 2023 di “discontinuità”. Nel 2025 la parola d’ordine è: “attendiamo”.

    Ecco l’unica vera coerenza del centrosinistra: il vizio ciclico di ripartire da capo senza mai spostarsi.

    Con Elly Schlein si è venduta la narrazione della svolta generazionale, linguistica, inclusiva, quasi messianica. Ma, di fronte al primo impatto reale con il paese (leggasi: Referendum fallito), il risultato è un déjà vu da manuale: malumori interni, leadership traballante, riformisti ai margini.

    Inoltre chi sa leggere tra le righe avrà capito che certi quesiti proposti dal PD sono stati rifiutati in modo deciso… E ideologicamente vicini al polo opposto…

    Il problema è la struttura genetica del partito. E finché si cambiano i volti senza aggiornare il sistema operativo, ogni nuovo leader non è altro che un aggiornamento minore dello stesso bug.

18. In the era of ai, loss of jobs, overbuilding they asks BULLSHIT questions like ‘should anyone born here get citize ship’. Do not get me wrong, i voted the right way all along: simply put, we have a left party that never spent 1 hour working in a iron factory, or never lived in a popular housing block. These are shits for bourgeois like me who don’t really have problems. This left is completely unaware of people’ lives, that is the main painful point.
    I wonder how many times Naomi schlein was insulted on a facotry line by a guy 20 years younger, or how many times had to pee in a bottle to reach some production tsrget.

19. Referendum ed elezioni NON sono la stessa cosa

    Referendum ed elezioni sono strumenti diversi, e confonderli porta a errori di valutazione.

    Le ELEZIONI servono a scegliere chi prenderà decisioni per te (parlamentari, sindaci, ecc.). È democrazia rappresentativa: deleghi il potere.

    Il REFERENDUM, invece, ti chiede di decidere tu stesso su un tema specifico. È democrazia diretta: rispondi SÌ o NO a una domanda chiara.

    Usarli come se fossero intercambiabili è sbagliato: un referendum non è un sondaggio sul governo, e un’elezione non è un voto su una legge.

    Due strumenti, due logiche, due scopi insomma.

20. It is a general problem for ‘the left’, no matter where they are… They tend to want to be so far to the left they become a tiny minority…

21. A lot of people didn’t vote because they specifically didn’t want the changes in regard to citizenship to pass. Had this referendum been just for the issues regarding work turnup might have been different.

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