Comedian shocks tradpols in Italy
ROME—Italy faced political deadlock on Tuesday after a stunning election that saw the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo become the strongest party in the country but left no group with a clear majority in parliament.
“The winner is: In governability,” was the headline in the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, echoing the sentiment of a shock stalemate the country would have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies would be forced to work together to form a government.
The center-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani won the lower house by around 125,000 votes and claimed the most seats in the Senate but was short of the majority in the upper house that it would need to govern.
Bersani claimed victory but said it was obvious that Italy was in “a very delicate situation.”
Neither Grillo, a comedian-turned-politician who previously ruled out any alliance with another party, nor Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right bloc, which threatened to challenge the close tally, showed any immedi- ate willingness to negotiate.
Commentators said all of Grillo’s adversaries had underestimated the appeal of a grass-roots movement that called itself a “nonparty,” particularly its allure among young Italians who find themselves without jobs and the prospect of a decent future.
“The ‘non-party’ has become the largest party in the country,” said Massimo Giannini, commentator for the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
World financial markets reacted nervously to the prospect of a government stalemate in the euro zone’s third-largest economy with memories still fresh of the financial crisis that took the 17member currency bloc to the brink of collapse in 2011.
The euro skidded to an almost seven-week low against the dollar in Asia on fears about the euro zone’s debt crisis. It fell as far as $1.3042, its lowest since Jan. 10.
Italy’s borrowing costs have come down in recent months, helped by the promise of European Central Bank support but the election result confirmed fears that it would not produce a government strong enough to implement effective reforms.
Grillo’s surge in the final weeks of the campaign threw the race open, with hundreds of thousands turning up at his rallies to hear him lay into targets ranging from corrupt politicians and bankers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.