Doomsday

Election day in Italy. In fifteen minutes the firsts exit polls will be released.

I hope it isn't the definitive suicide of a nation and I hope it isn't a draw.

--
Likely to what happened with the preemptive victory of Kerry, then turned into a victory of Bush, Berlusconi wins for a couple of votes.

Where is the button I have to press for the autodestruction? I don't want to be here. I'm serious.

I don't fucking want to be italian.

OBEY THE MONKEY

EDIT:
Ok, I just wake up. After being awake for 30+ hours following that thing I slept for nine hours straight. Now I dread to turn on the TV. I really fear what could happen because the situation is worse than the worst scenario.

For a brief summary. I think everyone has an idea of who is Berlusconi, it's not so simple to frame him because it is actually true that the perception of what he is, is distorted both here and outside italy but what is sure is that HE IS an anomaly. But an italian anomaly that also closely represent what the italy has been for many, many, many years. Berlusconi is both the product and the origin of this italy and some of the "qualities" has always been of these people, since Mussolini. Self-interest, demagogy, conformism.

What is true is that this italy DESERVES Berlusconi and Berlusconi REPRESENTS this italy. Everyone knows that he is an extremely wealthy entrepreneur who already owns most of televisions, publishing, insurances and so on. What isn't under his direct control is under the control of his sons. But what people don't understand is that Berlusconi is sincere. He is truly convinced that doing his own interest he is able to do the interest of all people and make everyone happy. He leads this nation exactly as he would lead one of his enterprises. There is just no difference for him.

He has this absurd convinction that his self-interest must be also the interest of everyone else. And he feels on a holy mission to lead this nation because he is so completely self-absorbed that he really thinks that without him the world couldn't continue and there is no viable alternative if not the disrepair.

He went from the economic world to the politics because of this egocentric vision of reality. Because of this distorted and hallucinated version of reality. He developed a sense of persecution and he sees everywhere conspiracies against him and attempts to sabotate his "regime". His electoral campaign (obviously on TV) has been all about evocating fears of communists conspiracies taking over. Now the point is that Berlusconi is also considered as a liar who uses his power on the media to influence the masses, but this isn't true. Berlusconi isn't a liar, he is truly convinced of this reality. And he feels like a prophet, a paladin, the only hope for this nation.

We are in the hands of a fool, this is the anomaly. It's quite obvious that here there isn't ONE INCH of political value or depth. This is just the distorted, ill vision of a mind with a sense of onnipotence. His politics is about convincing people as he would sell you any other commercial good and from this point of view he has a wonderful power because he is naturally able to break through the passive, grave, boring screen of the "politics" to reach the people more directly, with a common language and very simple ideas that really have no concrete sense (demagogy) but that still have the appeal. When you see him, from a side you are amused, and from the other you are in anguish. Because we are going straight to hell, this nation is moving toward a complete collapse, lead by an hallucinated mind who overthrew the rules of the politics to transform the reality exactly to mirror his hallucination.

There are many doubts about how Berlusconi achieved his power. He was able to gather an insane amount of money and built his economic empire just too quickly, from one day to the other. There are suspects that the source of this money was illegal and coming from the "mafia", but today it doesn't really matter anymore. Trying to sabotate what he is doing now with those accusations is only an attempt to build a time machine to go back in time and prevent all this to happen. And it's not a valid solution. The truth here is that italy has no hope to free itself from Berlusconi. He is a parasite that cannot be removed anymore. The truth is that, today, italy is Berlusconi. Italy become his image.

What happened yesterday:
Yesterday was election day after five years of his disastrous government. We came out of an electoral campaign that went over the line too many times (offences and arrogance were the norm). I was confident in the other side and I thought there were the premise to bring change here in italy. This isn't a case like in America where I could vote Kerry just so that Bush could go away. No, I was truly confident in the other side. I thought there were valid principles and the premises to finally move out of this delirium. I was counting on this. I was counting on a plebiscite. I was counting, hoping in the democracy. At least after five years of a government that is destroying italy piece by piece.

Now, to explain things roughly, in italy the executive power is of the whole parliament so Berlusconi is only the "frontman" and doesn't have so many executive powers on his own. We have two "parliaments" (camera and senato). A law basically bounces back between the two till it is approved by both. So we need the same "majority" in both so that a government can exist and approve the laws. The basic difference between these two parliaments is that one is voted by people slightly older.

We expected to have the final results of the elections around the 21 PM, yesterday. I went to sleep at 4 AM in the morning and we still didn't know exactly what happened. But this is italy and things never work here.

The side against Berlusconi had an advantage over him of about 4-5% for many months before the election day in the surveys. Yes, I was hoping on this. Yesterday, at 15 PM, we got the first "exit polls", just after the voting was complete, and these confirmed the advantage of 5%. Then the true data started to arrive, absurdly slowly. Also this data gave a huge gap in favor of the side against Berlusconi but this data wasn't homogeneous (since some regions here vote more for a side or the other, as in the USA) and as the hours passed this gap became increasingly thin. Till around 22 PM when the margin became so thin that all the statistics institutes "gave up" because there was no way to figure out who was going to win.

The biggest fear was a "draw". Because if we have two different winners at the two parliaments, there is no "governability" and we must go back to redo all the elections. Italy right now isn't in a good position to go through all this all over again. We cannot afford it.

So we went through all the afternoon where the side aganist Berlusconi was convinced to finally have won, and by a considerable margin. There was a public announce to be made around 18:30 PM and people were ready to party. There was something to celebrate. It was a success. But the data started to slow down, progressively. Till it crawled. Till it barely moved. The more the time passed the more the advantage grew thinner and the victory, from certain, to in doubt. That public announce in the afternoon was delayed hour by hour. Till 3 AM in the fucking morning. And we still had to receive the final data.

We assisted to some sort of nightmare and what happened after was pathetic at best. At 3:30AM in the morning it was finally certain that the side going against Berlusconi was going to win one of the two parliaments by just 20.000 votes, while the other was still uncertain. With the possibility to win for them even there, but where Berlusconi got more than 50% of the votes.

The debacle was complete. Despite all this, the representants of this side came out and made the public announce (awaited for the afternoon) that they "won the election". When it was not even completely true. When the situation coming out was DRAMATIC, prospecting the impossibility to govern. It was an utter failure and still they came out declaring they "had won". It looked pathetic, depressing. The truth is that the scenario of this "victory" is worse than the worst. It was a complete failure, Berlusconi was able to recuperate the 5% gap of disadvantage, against all the expectations. We just cannot free ourselves of him.

At 3:30 AM, while this side was declaring a false, inconsistent victory, Berlusconi sent out the announce that he was disproving this victory and that he would ask a recount of the votes from the beginning. I went to bed with an italy broken in half, with no clear winners and a situation of complete crisis. With Berlusconi as the moral winner and the other side announcing a victory that doesn't exist when they should have JUST SHUT UP AND HIDE. No fucking smiles because there isn't anything to smile about.

This was an utter failure, a defeat. Prospecting a complete ungovernability and a crisis both social and political. I went to sleep with an irreal victory and celebration from a side and a menace from the other, in angst. I wasn't anymore recognizing myself in any of those two political sides. It's just one single, dramatic future.

Now I fear to turn on the TV. Whoever won, the situation is dramatic.

13:50 - last edit -
We STILL don't have all the data. It's insane. But it's fairly safe to assume that the side against Berlusconi can technically have the majority on both paliaments, with 20.000 votes of advantage in one and 200.000 votes of disadvantage on the other. How is this possible? Similarly to how it happened in the USA, the other parliament is voted depending on the regions, so it matters more who won the specific region more than who got more votes overall.

It's still a defeat, from my point of view, for the reasons I explained above. It will be extremely hard to govern this nation with these premises. It's more reassuring that is not Berlusconi to have to deal with this mess but this doesn't change that the situation is dramatic. You can easily imagine that both sides are proclaming right now their victory since Berlusconi has techincally more votes (and, honestly, even a more compact coalition).

Summarizing: we have won, but there isn't anything to smile about. We should have won with a huge margin and Berlusconi was able not only to recuperate all of it, but even risk a victory. There is technically the possibility to govern but the coalition is extremely fragmented and way too shaky and instable. The point is that we tried everything and then more. If this is the best scenario, I fear to imagine what is the worst.

So what? We fight and then fight more, trying to govern even with that tiny, technical advantage to try to drag italy out of the mud even if without the full, "democratic" consensus of the people or we just give up we say "fuck off" and just let italy in the hands of who it truly deserves? If it was me, I would have chosen the latter, the coalition decided for the former.

The funny thing: Berlusconi rewrote and tailored the electoral laws so that he could have a technical advantage and more possibilities of winning. What is fun is that these laws retorted against him. If the other side has now the possibility to win and govern even without a definite majority on the overall votes, it's because of the stupid changes he made on those laws.