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Matteo Renzi’s Fate Is at Stake as Italians Vote in Referendum
Italy’s Premier, Matteo Renzi, Suffers Stark Defeat at Hands of Populism
(about 11 hours later)
ROME — After months of ubiquitous, bitter and incessant campaigning, Italians voted on Sunday on key constitutional changes that have taken on broader significance as both a referendum on Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and a test of strength for anti-establishment forces in Europe.
ROME — Italy plunged into political and economic uncertainty early Monday after voters rejected a constitutional reform upon which Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had staked his government. The result is certain to reverberate across a European Union already buffeted by political upheaval and anti-establishment anger.
In a continent that has for years seemed on the verge of financial crisis and political upheaval, Italy’s referendum on whether to streamline its baroque legislative process has become the latest flash point. Mr. Renzi has said he might resign if his reforms are rejected, a step that could provide yet another shock to an already unsteady European Union.
Ostensibly the vote was about arcane changes to Italy’s Constitution that would have streamlined government. But opposition to the reforms came from the same anti-establishment sentiment — spiked with skepticism of globalization, open borders and the feasibility of an ever-closer European Union — that has transformed the politics of a growing list of European countries.
Anti-establishment parties have already smashed the traditional political structures in Greece and Spain, and euroskeptic forces led Britain out of the European Union in June.
Such movements have already smashed the traditional political structures in Greece and Spain, and Euro-skeptic forces led Britain to vote in June to leave the European Union.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, once untouchable, seems vulnerable in this year’s elections. And far-right parties are also seeking power in France and Austria, which also votes on Sunday in a presidential election that could install a leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which was established by former Nazis.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, once untouchable, now seems vulnerable in next year’s elections. And far-right parties are also seeking power in France.
But it is the vote in Italy, the fourth-largest economy in Europe and a key player in the European Union, that is sending shivers through leaders on the Continent and across the globe.
In Austria, the Green Party stalled the advance of populist forces on Sunday by defeating the presidential candidate of the far-right Freedom Party, which was established by former Nazis. The result in Austria might have calmed some nerves, but it was the rejection of Mr. Renzi that most sent shivers through Europe and the world.
After Brexit and the victory of Donald J. Trump in the United States, Italy has emerged as potentially the next domino to fall to surging populist forces, raising fears of political instability that could prompt a renewed financial crisis.
In a strategic blunder that echoed David Cameron’s call for a “Brexit” referendum, Mr. Renzi had tied his government’s tenure to Sunday’s vote when he was flying high in the polls.
Mr. Renzi, 41, came to power in 2014 as an anti-establishment outsider who nevertheless emerged as an expert at working within the system.
But his support eroded, and world leaders anxiously watched the vote in Italy, the fourth-largest economy in Europe and a key player in the European Union, as a referendum on Mr. Renzi’s centrist government and as a barometer on the strength of anti-establishment winds blowing across both sides of the Atlantic.
For more than two years he carefully struck the balance between outsider and insider, delivering reforms and gaining leverage in Europe while lambasting “old fogies” and European bureaucrats.
Financial analysts have warned that instability caused by Mr. Renzi’s premature departure could result in a renewed and possibly contagious financial crisis in Italy, where banks are saddled with bad loans, and where desperately needed investors are turned off by the return of Italian instability.
Mr. Renzi took on a special aura as a bulwark against the anti-immigrant, right-wing and radical forces in Europe when he beat back a continentwide swell of populism in the 2014 elections for the European Parliament. Italy, long mocked as the chaotic home of 63 governments in 70 years, emerged as a safe port of stability and an unexpectedly important voice on the Continent.
“Having given stability to the country, independently of me, is fundamental to bring Italy into the European discussion,” Mr. Renzi explained in an interview over the summer. He added that while he felt European, “I could never be part of its establishment.”
But in recent months, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which advocates a referendum to determine whether Italy should give up the euro and wants to break the system altogether, has gained momentum.
The vote is “a test of strength of the anti-Europe and anti-establishment forces in Italy,” said Stefano Stefanini, a diplomatic adviser to the former Italian president Giorgio Napolitano.
He said that Mr. Renzi’s departure could ultimately embolden parties feeding on economic frustration, loss of national identity, anger at Brussels and a desire to break with the post-World War II belief that Italy’s economic and national security interests were better served within an alliance of liberal democracies.
The vote showed that Italy “is reverting to a willingness to go it alone as a nation-state,” Mr. Stefanini said.
Ever since Mr. Renzi tied his tenure to the result, the referendum has become the central issue in Italy, dominating news coverage and political conversation. Mr. Renzi’s vow to step down if he loses brought all of his many political enemies out of the woodwork.
If approved, Mr. Renzi’s reform would change 47 of the 68-year-old Constitution’s 139 articles. When the Constitution was written in the wake of Mussolini’s fascist regime, its drafters paid special attention to preventing another strongman by setting up a perfect bicameral system, in which both houses had to approve identical drafts of bills before the proposals became law.
Mr. Renzi has argued that the constitutional reform — to streamline government, shrink and weaken the Senate and transfer powers away from the regions to the executive branch — is necessary to speed up the pace of lawmaking and better compete with his European allies.
Critics complained that Mr. Renzi’s changes invested too much power in the prime minister, but many opponents seemed most animated by the prospect of toppling Mr. Renzi.
The populist Five Star Party seemed poised to benefit most of all.
“We have the Italian people behind us,” Luigi Di Maio, the 30-year-old deputy leader of Italy’s lower house of Parliament, and a member of the Five Star Movement who is often considered a rival to Mr. Renzi, said in an interview this month. “And he is losing.”
Some world leaders, seeing in Mr. Renzi a critical defense against populism’s rising tide, urged him to stay. President Obama, speaking at the White House during Mr. Renzi’s visit in October, said he hoped Mr. Renzi would “hang around for a while no matter what.”
The incoming Trump administration was less eager to see him remain. Members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle have closely watched, and rooted for, the surging populism in Europe.
In the interview this summer, Mr. Renzi compared Beppe Grillo, the leader of the Five Star Movement, to Mr. Trump, and said he believed fear was driving the populist movements in America, Italy and Europe.
“Populism is always the offspring of fear, and in Italy the answer to fear is the courage to not be defensive, to not be like all the others,” he said.
The final polls looked bleak for Mr. Renzi, though he campaigned vigorously over the final week to convince a broad slice of undecided voters to stick with him. But Mr. Renzi’s enemies, and there are many, campaigned just as tirelessly and a steady stream of fake news targeting Mr. Renzi flooded the Facebook accounts of many Italians.
On Sunday morning, Bruni Bova, 77, and his wife, Anna Roncaglia, 79, strolled next to the august palace that is home to the Italian Senate after voting in the referendum. In a country that is sharply divided on the referendum, so was the couple.
“As a little boy I saw them making this Constitution. But just like clothes, a constitution that is 68 years old is not going to fit a country that has grown up,” Mr. Bova said.
He said he had been undecided until that morning but opted to support the government, which he considered a moderating force.
“I decided it was better to support the government, because through all of his talking and spinning and operating, Renzi has proven capable of doing something,” Mr. Bova said. “I don’t see the Five Star Movement as capable of governing. They are simply a protest vote.”
His wife said she didn’t see the need for such a dramatic change. “I wanted to keep things simple,” Ms. Roncaglia said.
After casting his ballot against the reform on Sunday morning, Dario Cecchi, 37, said his vote had less to do with Mr. Renzi than the substance of the reform itself. He said that it was too dramatic a change just to save money on the salaries of senators. “We’re not that poor yet,” he said.
Mr. Cecchi added that he was upset that Mr. Renzi had tied his political fate to the referendum, because he didn’t want the prime minister to step down, as he had “gotten Italy’s motor running again.”
He said he understood that Mr. Renzi had re-established Italy as a force within Europe and that a yes vote would only increase his country’s power inside the bureaucracy of the European Union. But, he said, the reform “shouldn’t just be good for Europe, it should be good for Italy.”
