Referendum and Renzi context.

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A referendum to amend the Italian constitution was lost on Sunday and the young prime minister Matteo Renzi who had, unlike all before him, gotten reform that far, resigned in the face of dinosaurs on all sides wanting him gone.

There is an excellent review of the situation here, by the Australian born, Italian citizen, head of the Brussels managing editor of MLex, James Panichi.

The Italian constitution vests significant powers in the president and President Mattarella is a very experienced politician who entered politics when his brother, at the time President of Sicily was assassinated by the mafia. Asked then to clean up the Sicilian branch of the Christian Democratic Party (DC). He was a member of the left in the DC, a concept difficult for those coming from countries where a catholic party would be expected to be deeply conservative. But the Democristiani were working in a different kind of world, where it as the confessional party contained within itself everyone from monarchists, fascists, conservatives to socialists and anarchists. The old DC regularly securing 40% of the vote to the Communist Party's 30%. Mattarella's faction favoured the 'apertura alla sinistra', opening to the left, and dealing with the communist party.  He seems held in warm regard. He has told Renzi to stay in his seat and sort out budget and electoral laws. Mattarella is not rolling over for the right and populists calling for an election straight away.

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For non-Australians seeking the meaning of the "Renzi’s Keatingesque strut" this is a reference to the wonder-modernist spit-on-fools former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, who also took on too many people at once, including a conservative electorate.

Italian referendum 4 December 2016.

We blithely plan for March but Italy heads towards a possible cliff edge on 4 December with a referendum to alter the constitution to end the capacity of the upper house of the parliament to bring down governments:   Italy has had 64 governments since the republic was established after World War II. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has said he will resign if the vote is 'no'. He comes from the left. Today The Economist  which does not come from the left says people should vote no including because the proposed changes to the upper house would make it less representative — a bit thick coming from an establishment journal in the UK with its House of Lords! Otherwise there is a widespread apprehension that an anti-government vote in Italy, on the heels of Brexit and Trump, and with the EU destabilised, could have very wide repercussions, given the state of the Italian banks. One wonders who within the world of The Economist is shorting Italian stocks. See this review of The Big Short on the last great American crash; the review expresses concern about Italy.