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On Sunday, Italy will go to the ballots for the eighteenth time since the end of WWII – possibly the most unpredictable election since the advent of the Republic, with around 40% of voters still undecided according to the latest opinion polls, an uncertainty which will probably end up translating into a hung Parliament.

The bipolar party system that has dominated Italian politics for decades has perished, and now chaos reigns, gently granted by a new, yet untested electoral law which mixes first-past-the-post (electing one-third of parliamentarians) and proportional representation (which will deliver two-thirds through party lists). There are three main contestants for the seats of the next legislature: the Five Star Movement, the right coalition and the left, mainly represented by the Democratic Party and its small allies.

The Five Star Movement in the last legislature and in the run-up to this election has gained so much support that polls predict it will be the biggest party – but will probably fall short of the required 50% majority needed to govern on its own. Even if that happens, though, no one knows what to expect from a party that, until now, has only proven to be good at the pars destruens – shutting down every legislative proposal possible – and not yet delivered the construens one. Instead, the Movement has ridden every populist current it could find, from the anti-vaccines campaign to the anti-euro and anti-migrant ones and has presented a nebulous political program – topped by extremely high-cost economic promises that at the end of the day are going to be impossible to fulfil. In line with their “one is worth one” motto, their prime minister candidate is 31 years old Luigi Di Maio, whose most significant work experience before landing in Parliament was as steward of Naples’ football stadium.

The right is yet again dominated by a revived Silvio Berlusconi, who, in an eerie and grotesque resemblance to the 1994 election, is campaigning for his party Forza Italia, and is still promising the very same things. With him, the unholy alliance of the far right and fascist aficionados Brothers of Italy and Northern League promises to take the political scene by storm and take back Italy to its ancient splendours – carefully avoiding reminding people that the last time they tried, they brought Italy to the verge of bankruptcy and social and economic collapse. Led by a convicted tax-fraudster Berlusconi, this incoherent alliance is promising everything and its opposite.

The left, on the other hand, is doing what it does best: getting divided and then conquered. The temporary alliance it was able to find in the last 2013 elections – when the failings of the last Berlusconi government were still fresh and exacerbated by Mario Monti’s “experts government” – has vanished under Matteo Renzi’s personalisation of the Democratic Party (PD). In addition, old grudges have led the old guard to abandon the sinking ship (PD, after scoring an impressive and all-time high 40.8% in the 2014 European elections, is now reported as polling around 20-22%) for another one – a small party, Liberi e Uguali, who probably will not score above 5-6% and has already announced it will not form any alliances.

The left, on the other hand, is doing what it does best: getting divided and then conquered

What is most disheartening, however, is not the lack of a feasible choice, but the atmosphere and the tone of the discourses of this electoral campaign. An atmosphere that, similar to the Trump election and the Brexit referendum, is embedded with hatred, fear and a frightening resurgence of fascism. Two weeks ago, The Guardian reported that “More than 70 years after Benito Mussolini’s death, thousands of Italians are joining self-described fascist groups in a surge of support that antifascist groups blame on the portrayal of the refugee crisis, the rise of fake news and the country’s failure to deal with its past.”

It is an uncanny representation of the current political scenario: fostered by the dangerous rhetoric of far-right parties, such as the Northern League and Brothers of Italy, and of the Five Star Movement, the most repulsive instincts of human nature have found an open road. A hatred that has been focused towards the migrants, depicted by those parties as a dangerous mass planning to invade Italy and destroy our culture – a comeback of the barbaric invasion that ended Rome in 476 BC. A depiction that has been incredibly successful on many people ready to point their finger at refugees and migrants for the dismal economic conditions, the high unemployment and what has been perceived as an increased crime rate. In fact, one only needs to look at the official statistics to understand that there is absolutely no invasion going on: in 2016, according to the data provided by the Home Office and the UNCHR, the refugees present in Italy were 131,000 – more than 50,000 less than in Sweden and four times less than in Germany. Italy has a population of 60 million, which means that there are around 2 migrants for every 1000 citizens. Hardly an invasion, anyone would conclude. Even the arrivals from the Mediterranean have diminished, with a drop of 34.24% in 2016.

Clearing the field for unmitigated hatred and xenophobia, summed with the spread of fake news regarding the migrants’ situation, has already extorted its toll: since 2014, there have been 142 attacks by neofascists groups. Last month, 28-year-old Luca Traini, a far-right extremist, carried out a shooting rampage that injured six African migrants in the city centre of Macerata. This was a terrorist, racist and fascist attack, but it has not received the condemnation, both by the political forces and the public opinion, it should have had. His act was deemed as one born out of mental illness or exhaustion at the supposed migrants’ invasion, while it was hailed by part of the public opinion as heroic. 

Italy has a population of 60 million, which means that there are around 2 migrants for every 1000 citizens

A public opinion who believes the fake news spread by far-right exponents and political movements such as the Northern League and the Five Star Movement, spanning from the refugees to the danger of vaccines. A public opinion who is disillusioned by the “traditional” political class and parties and seeks (any) change and who has decided that experts are “slaves to the lobbies” and hails ignorance, incompetence, and demagogy as their core values.

And in doing so, it forgets to ask the most pressing and important questions: where will these populist parties find the funds for their economic proposals? They have been offering major tax cuts, more money for the families, increasing expenditure to the school and health sectors and even a “citizenship salary” – a minimum income offered to unemployed people or pensioners who are in economic difficulties. But how do they intend to pay for that, when the government debt is now worth the 132,6% of the Italian GDP and grows by 4,469 euros (around £3974) every second? What are their programs regarding youth unemployment, which – even though it has nominally diminished – still remains the third highest in the Eurozone with 32,2% of people under 25 not having a job? What about the fact that the number of Italians leaving the country often exceed the number of migrants coming in?

No answers have been given, no feasible proposals have been put on the table: the political carousel keeps spinning, the tone has not yet changed. A strange climate made up by political apathy and extremism has crippled any possibility of constructive dialogue for what will happen in the aftermath, if the credible prediction of having a hung parliament will become true.

Even though I’m going home to vote, next week, it will be with a heavy heart and the sensation that something, in the democratic process, went wrong.

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