Italy speaks out

Italy’s reputation has suffered more than a few knocks over the years – most recently with The Economist’s damming Friday headline, which is perhaps why people’s optimism has been so long in coming. But this week’s referendum results prove that Italy’s people are ready to speak their minds and move on.

The referendum that took place on Sunday June 12 and Monday 13 asked the Italian electorate to vote on four key pieces of legislation, including a permanent ban on building nuclear power stations in Italy, the privatisation of municipal water utilities and a controversial law which shields politicians from prosecution.

“Thank you democracy. Thank you Italy”, shouted the Green Party’s leader Angelo Bonelli as he uncorked a bottle of spumante during an impromptu party outside Rome’s Pantheon to celebrate the close of the polling stations at 3 pm on Monday. His joy was shared by the 28 million Italians who flooded to the polling stations to cast their vote against nuclear energy. Italy is the first country to vote on nuclear energy since Fukushima and only 4 per cent voted in favour of allowing nuclear energy to be produced in Italy, a clear signal that while Berlusconi may think that “atomic energy is the future”, the rest of the country begs to disagree. Clean energy activists have welcomed the Prime Minister’s promise in a press conference following the referendums to invest in renewable energy instead.

As world headlines race each other around the globe spreading news of Berlusconi’s defeat – “Beginning of the end?” asks the Christian Science Monitor, “Embarrassing defeat”, clucks the Deutsche Welle, “Referendum blow” reports the Financial Times – at home Italians are still trying to digest the meaning of their collective action.  The run up to the referendum was highly politicised and the ruling centre-right coalition government was so strongly opposed to it that both Berlusconi and his colleague Umberto Bossi (head of the right wing Lega Nord party) refused to vote, calling on all their supporters to do the same. Despite this and despite the fact that several Italian cities had only recently been called on to vote in municipal elections, there was a 57 per cent turn out, several points up from the 50 plus one that was needed to reach the quorum needed to validate the votes.

The secret to the success of the referendum surely lies in the hundreds civil initiatives inspiring people to use the referendum to have their say. An article in Italy’s daily national La Repubblica dated June 9 lists dozens of events being held across Italy to raise awareness of the issues raised by the referendum and run not just by political parties but civil society organisations, associations, citizens committees and students.

Perhaps there is something over the rainbow after all.