44 Europe The EconomistFebruary 24th 2018
1R
AFFAELE FITTO is a man in a hurry. The
black limousine with darkened win-
dows hurtling through the gathering dark-
ness hits 160kph (100mph) as it rushes him
to his next campaign stop. With barely two
weeks to go before Italy’s general election,
Mr Fitto has just inaugurated his party’s
headquarters in Bari, the regional capital
of his native Puglia, the “heel” of Italy’s
boot, in the deep south. Yet the party he
leads, which was founded only in Decem-
ber with the odd name ofNoi con l’Italia
(NcI, roughly: We’re with Italy), could
make a crucial difference to the outcome of
the vote on March 4th.
The main pollsters agree thatthe only
electoral alliance with a chance of win-
ning an absolute majority in the next par-
liament is the one forged on the right by Sil-
vio Berlusconi, a former prime minister.
Vowing to clamp down on illegal immigra-
tion and introduce a flat-rate income tax,
Mr Berlusconi and his allies have gained in
the polls as the centre-left Democratic
Party (PD), led by another former prime
minister, Matteo Renzi, has lost ground. If
none of the contenders wins an outright
majority, a broad coalition, perhaps led by
the incumbent prime minister, Paolo Gen-
tiloni, an urbane and competent man who
seems broadly acceptable to almost every-
one, may be the only way to make Italy go-
vernable. Butthe right still has a chance.The lastpollspublished before a pre-
election gag rule came into effect on Febru-
ary 17th all implied a hung parliament. But
under Italy’s new electoral rules almost
40% of the seats will be decided on a first-
past-the-post basis, the rest by propor-
tional representation (PR). And, points out
Antonio Noto of Noto Sondaggi, the na-
tional percentages given by the polls are
only really useful for predicting the PR sec-
tion of the ballot. Analysing the most re-
cent polling data, Salvatore Vassallo of the
University of Bologna has concluded that
the right was ahead in so many winner-
takes-all constituencies that it was likely to
gain a slendermajority in the Senate (the
upper house), and was, perhaps astonish-
ingly, a mere four seats short of doing the
same in the Chamber of Deputies (the low-
er house). That, however, ignores yet an-
other variable: the 30% of Italian voters
who remain undecided. Soundings by Mr
Noto found less than one in six of those
leaned to the right.
Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party en-
joys support throughout the country, but
the pollssuggest only about 17% of decided
voters back it. For victory, it depends on al-
lies with strong regional bases, who are ex-
pected to do well in first-past-the-post seats
in their core areas: the Northern League
with around 13%; the Brothers of Italy, a
small party with neo-fascist roots that is
strong around Rome; and, in the south
where the pollsters agree this election will
be decided, the NcI. An alliance of tiny
groups, mostly led by former members of
the once-dominant Christian Democrat
party whose symbol features prominently
in its logo, the NcIis the joker in the pack of
this election.
For Mr Fitto, the right’s only real oppo-
nent in the south is the anti-establishment
Five Star Movement (M 5 S). The NcI’s
strong point is that, unlike the M 5 S, its can-
didates are well-known to their elector-
ates. They are men—mostly men—who
have held office locally and can depend on
goodwill built up over years, even de-cades, of distributing jobs and contracts to
local people in the needy south.
At Corato, a town of fewer than 50,000
inhabitantswhere the NcI’s candidate was
mayor for ten years, he and Mr Fitto, who
was governor of Puglia, drew a crowd of
well over 500 on a freezing night. Candi-
date-recognition is especially important in
the first-past-the-post contests. The NcIis
contesting 34 seats, of which Mr Fitto reck-
ons they can win half. In the PR section of
the ballot, parties need 3% of the national
vote to qualify for entry into parliament.
But even if the NcIfailed to reach the 3%
threshold, its votes would then go to the
rest of the alliance.
Mr Fitto dismisses such talk. “The polls
show we’re almost at 3% and we’ve barely
started campaigning,” he says. Even at just
3% the NcIwould gain another18 seats, giv-
ing it 30-40 of the 945 in the two houses of
parliament. That may seem insignificant.
But Italy’s next government could well
have a wafer-thin majority and ex-Chris-
tian Democrats—natural centristsand of-
ten ideologically flexible—are renowned
for the ease with which they shift their alle-
giances and the skill with which they ex-
ploit their position, close to the fulcrum of
Italian politics. One NcIbigwig kept Rom-
ano Prodi’slast fragile, centre-left govern-
ment on tenterhooks for months before
helping to bring it down in 2008. Another
one changed his affiliation no fewer than
five times in the last parliament.
“We could be decisive for everything,”
says Mr Fitto. 7ItalyJokers in the pack
BARI
A tiny new partymay determine the
future governmentBerlusconi’s slender chanceThe final scoresSources: National polls;
The Economist *Part of centre-right allianceItaly, general election polling
Selected parties, %MJ J ASOND
2017JF
201805101520253035
Five Star MovementDemocratic PartyForza Italia*Northern League*Brothers of Italy*Free and Equal
We’re with Italy*S
HAPPAL IBRAHIM knew they were
coming for him. As soon as the Syrian
security forces began repressing anti-gov-
ernment protests he had helped to organ-
ise in the spring of 2011, the Kurdish activist
went underground. But the goons soon
caught up with him. What followed was
nearly two years of horror, most of it in
Saydnaya, a notorious military prison out-
side Damascus. “They made me stand na-
ked in my cell for hours, beat me and tor-
tured me with electric shocks,” he says.
“There was never enough to eat, and only
three or four hours of sleep a night.”
Unlike countless others, Mr Ibrahim
made it out: he was released as part of an
amnesty in May 2013 and fled to Germany
via Iraqi Kurdistan. Along with other Syri-
ans who suffered a similar fate, he has now
offered to testify to the office of Germany’sWar crimesA plea for justice
BERLIN AND KARLSRUHE
Refugees tortured in Syria’s civil war
are seeking redress in German courts