By Cybergeppetto
What is the main mission of the Italian government? Resigning. How many kinds of governments Italy can have? Italians have experienced a huge variety of governements, e.g. the “governo di unità nazionale” (national unity cabinet), the “governo del presidente” (president’s cabinet), the “governo balneare” (summer time cabinet) and, again in these days, the “governo tecnico” (non-political cabinet).
The “governo di unità nazionale” was invented in dark times of the fight on terrorism, but it was not intended to defeat the “Brigate rosse”, the left wing armed faction. It was just a way to set up a first experiment of putting all the parties together in the view of the so called “compromesso storico”, the alliance between catholic and communist forces.
Mr. Aldo Moro, former President of the Democrazia Cristiana, was killed by the terrorists because the Government was nor able to reach an agreement with the terrorists, nor prepared to conduct any serious law enforcement.
The “governo del presidente” was an invention of Mr Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, former President of the Italian Republic, to overthrow Mr Berlusconi in 1994, then the trade unions declared a general strike against the proposal to reduce the early retirement. The “governo tecnico” did right after a vague reform of retirement system with a too long time schedule.
The “governo balneare” was a funny way to call the cabinet intended to go over summer time waiting for the elections in autumn, probably the best political gag of all the times.
The “governo tecnico” is just the way to defeat the political competitor avoiding early elections, it is a nonsense the fact that the political life is to be managed by non-political characters just to allow the opposition to overthrow the majority and remain on the scene.
The fact that the Italian political history is full of cabinets is simply explained, the Parliament is permanently ill, it’s got a particular kind of flu and takes the cabinet as a sort of paper napkin to be used to clean the nose and to be thrown away immediately after.
This illness is the “parlamentarismo”, which means that any member of the Parliament is free to move from whatever political party he was elected with to any one else. In the “Camera dei Deputati” and the “Senato”, the two houses of the Parliament, there is a day by day move of members of parliament, some of them are able to change two, three or more parties during the “legislatura”, the political term of the Parliament. These frequent flyers of the politics, funny commuters among the political parties, are able to destroy any hope of continuity of the government action.
The useless complexity of the italian constitutional architecture and the complete disregard of the popular willingness by the politicians are the main reasons of the ineffectiveness of the Italian State as a whole.
Other funny expressions to be commented will follow in the coming moths.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. “Ogni membro del Parlamento rappresenta la Nazione ed esercita le sue funzioni senza vincolo di mandato”. Any member of the Parliament represents the Nation and performs his functions without being limited by any mandate. Italy is a unique Country with a special group of people totally irresponsible of their coups.
Related article:
Italian for foreigners. The Political jargon dictionary – By Cybergeppetto (6th Nov 2011)
Photo: Dizionario Italiano Inglese
