ONE Italian commentator compares them to so many Tarzans, gliding from tree to tree through the jungle of Italian politics. The latest was Giovanni Piccoli. On October 31st the 59-year-old senator swung back to Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, a mere 21 days after deserting it. According to Openpolis, an NGO, Mr Piccoli’s rethink was the 533rd time an Italian parliamentarian had changed sides since the start of the current legislature in 2013. Of the 945 deputies and senators elected then, 342 have felt moved by conscience, or other considerations, to change parliamentary groups; in many cases, more than once.
The phenomenon is so common that there is a word for it: trasformismo (also used in Italian to describe the art of the theatrical quick-change artiste). Though a prime source of political instability and an important reason why Italian voters find it so difficult to decipher their country’s politics, trasformismo is seldom a subject for public discussion. But then the...Continue reading
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