The election

Although it was obviously no good thing that the government collapsed, I was nonetheless quite excited to be in Italy during the collapse and formation of a government. It does seem however that it would almost be impossible to spend a year in Italy without this happening, so frequently do the governments fall. After the actual collapse there was a sense of disappointment but predictability about it, this is what people have come to expect. People told me 'oh don't worry its normal, you get used to it' in fact some told me it was probably better than before... Of course, Silvio Berlusconi is the only man who has ever made a government last the full 5 years, which goes a long way to explaining his popularity, I think.


I know very little about the Italian political system but hopefully enough to write a little bit about it. Prodi suffered a vote of no confidence after he lost the majority in the the Senate, the 9 party coalition he held lost its majority after one Senator from a tiny party with only 3 Senators was forced to resign after he was implicated in a corruption scandal. He protested his innocence. When I was staying with a Turinese friend of my mums around this time I asked if she believed him to which she replied in her own idiomatic way 'He's as innocent as I am Japanese'.


At this point, it was up to the President (whose role is normally seen as purely ceromonial or at least with little power) to choose whether to hold new elections, or to appoint a government of 'Technocrats' to sort out the electoral process so that it did not collapse so often. The problem with the current system is that although the proportional representation system on which some of it works has many benefits, obviously including providing representation to the parties at the extremes of the political spectrum. However this also means that the coalitions relied heavily on small parties for support which, as the collapsed showed, was unsustainable. I think the President was keen to go for the Govt of technocrats option but Berlusconi and those on the right refused to agree to this so an election was duly called. I think this is a massive shame as there is little hope of real reforms taking place, the last ones took place under a Berlusconi government and it is clear from the recent collapse that they did nothing to improve things, the politicians just adjust the laws to their own benefits.


I find it strange, and quite antiquated that postal voting is only available to Italians living abroad (bearing in mind that in Sheffield last year you could vote on the internet). Students here have no such luxury, almost everyone I know who is from outside Bologna went home for the elections. I'm told you can get reduced travel on trains but I don't know if this was valid for two of my friends who flew back to Sicily. The University closed down for the day to allow students to go home to vote.


It was to absolutely noones surprise that Berlusconi won the election, but one thing which did shock a few people was the sudden rise in popularity of 'Lega Nord' (The Northern League) an extreme right party who believe, in a nutshell, that the Northerners pay their taxes purely to support the southeners. They suggest the North separates or at least gets autonomy and even have a name for this new country 'Padania' though I suspect rather a lot of people in 'Padania' would not be very happy about this new national identity which has been created for them. Aside from this particuliarity the Lega are an extreme right party like any other, anti-immigration, anti europe, anti-high taxation (which is obviously just going down south to subsidise the southerners...). Nationally, which in this case really means just in the North, they achieved 8.3% - almost double their taking in the election on 2006. Their racist posters for this election beggared belief.



Their rise reminds me a lot of that of the Front National in France. Like there, the Lega have risen in popularity mainly with working-class voters who are suffering the worst for the slow economy and rising living costs. Also like the FN they appear to provide quickfix answers to complicated questions. Struggling to find a job? Oh its those immigrants who took them. Similarly to France where main stream parties have entered into coalitions and campaigned with the FN, Berlusconi ran for parliament in this election with the Lega's support.



In the pub the night of the results we were drinking with two guys thoroughly upset about the result, one of them worked in the solar panel industry and was concerned that a Berlusconi win could cost him his job, as unlike Prodi, Berlusconi has no intention of putting money into the sector. Their reaction I think was fairly typical for Bologna where the results do not reflect the national count, in Emilia Romagna and particularly Bologna - famous for its left wing politics - the left won an outright victory with 49% - Berlusconi only got 28%. This is compared to the closer result nationally which was 47 to 37% in favour of Berlusconi in both the Senate and Chamber.



In contrast with those two guys however, at lunch on Tuesday two of my friends announced they had also Berlusconi and friend of theirs also there had voted Lega, when I asked him why he retorted 'Do you want to continue being able to walk the streets safely at night?' Well I'm not too worried about that to be honest, but I am worried about Italy under a Berlusconi/extreme right government.

Asta di Bici

There is a thriving black market for bikes in Bologna, mainly focused in the University District, particularly on Via Zamboni where any walk under the porticoes will be punctuated by thieves (and often so called ‘Punkabestia’ – punks with dogs on string) offering to sell stolen bikes by whispering or calling out ‘Bici Bici’. The police know that they are there but one would presume they know about the open drug dealing too and they do nothing about that, as a friend said to me recently ‘Law doesn’t really exist on Via Zamboni’.

For a long time this has been the only way to get a bike in Bologna, with such a thriving trade in stolen bikes it makes absolutely no sense to buy a new one as it will no doubt be stolen before long. Even a refurbished second hand bike in a shop costs at a minimum €70. The maximum price on the ‘mercato nero’ being €20…

When I came to Bologna I was keen not to buy into the vicious cycle which has developed. I got a leaflet listing all the bike shops and called each one asking if they had second-hand bikes for sale, very few did, but the two or so which did were again around the €80 mark and I couldn’t afford that, particularly knowing it would probably not last the month. I finally decided that I would have to get one from Zamboni when, as I sat calling all these bike shops in a sunny Piazza, a girl who had overheard me approached and asked what I was doing, ‘you need to be down on Zamboni’.

One thief offered me a bike but didn’t seem to have one to sell, he led me to a bike stand where he pointed to a still locked up bike, he was offering to steal it to order! Although I knew by this time that the bike I eventually bought would probably have been stolen this seemed like a step too far and I politely declined. The bike I ended up buying cost €20. I got ripped off even then, just as I was about to hand over the agreed €15 another ‘buyer’ came up and offered €20, I naively agreed to up match his bid only realising seconds afterwards that the they were working together. But it was the most BELLA red bici EVER and I was determined for it not to get stolen. I did well; it lasted until the day before I went home for Easter, unfortunately just 2 weeks after I bought a new very heavy-duty chain for €35.

After I bought my bike I discovered an initiative being used to try and combat the black market for bikes here. A couple of student groups, the ‘Comune de Bologna’ and the Quartiere San Vitale have been working together to set up an auction of used bikes to provide a legal and moral alternative to the black market trade. One of these auctions was held last week at the bottom of Zamboni, I think it’s a fantastic idea and very well organised. They explained at the beginning of the auction that the bikes being sold are provided by the rail network and are ones which have been left in an area where leaving bikes is not allowed. Any bike left in this area has a warning left on it for a week saying it will be taken away if not removed, if it is still there at the end of the week then they take it away leaving a note saying you have 3 months to claim it back. Any bikes left after this period has elapsed are then given to the bike auction. At the auction they have people from 'Piazza Grande' the italian Big Issue who will fix up the bike for a small fee.

This is not an auction in the traditional sense of the word, in order to provide a valid alternative to the thieves a maximum price is set on all the bikes of €15, therefore everyone is expected to bring some kind of identifying feature to mark them out, the more creative the better. The first person to win one was a man holding two pieces of paper, the first just saying ‘Unemployed’ and the second his CV ‘proving’ his unemployed status. The woman next to me got one, posing as a fish out of water…?! The person who decides who gets the bikes is the revered ‘Rita’ an Ann Robinson lookalike in her smart rail company uniform. I thought I would be granted out of pity as I wore the most embarrassing hat belonging to my housemate Corentin but it clearly wasn’t original enough as someone near me had the same one. There are never enough bikes to fill demand, this time they had 100 bikes and the compere estimated there were about 4-500 people. Nonetheless there was a great atmosphere and I will be along at the next one with a more original ‘identifier’ hoping to get lucky.