ITALY was the odd one out. As voters throughout Europe backed protest groups, Eurosceptics and extremists, the Italian electorate gave a huge endorsement to the pro-European Democratic Party (PD) of Matteo Renzi, the prime minister.The centre-left PD took 41% of the vote, the best showing by a party in a national election since 1958. It had commentators wondering if Italy might be entering a new era of one-party hegemony similar to the post-war decades dominated by the Christian Democrats. The maverick Five Star Movement (M5S), led by an ex-comedian, Beppe Grillo, did unexpectedly badly, trailing the PD by almost 20 percentage points. And Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party won less than 17%.So was this a vote of confidence in the EU, the euro and good old conventional party politics? Not really. Mr Renzi had positioned himself as somebody who, given enough support, would take on Mrs Merkel and the austerity policies she represents. And while Mr Grillo may be the most blatantly populist of Italy’s leading politicians, the prime minister, like Mr Berlusconi, is another big-talking showman. One reason for his triumph was a tax cut that will put €80 ($110) a month into the wage packets of the lower paid.Even if Mr Grillo had not repeatedly forecast a victory for M5S, its result, four points lower than in last year’s general election, would have been a setback....
from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1lU9AfA
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