Italy’s revolving door for the country’s premiership revolves again bringing the centre-right Silvio Berlusconi to power for the third time. But that’s not really the story. His win was expected given the lackluster performance of Romano Prodi’s centre-left government. It is also not that Berlusconi didn’t do well, he did. His Il Popolo della Libertà party won 37.4% of the vote or 272 seats in Italy’s 617 member Chamber of Deputies. Thus falling short of a majority, Berlusconi will have to form a coalition government. And it is the surprising results of his junior coalition partner, Lega Nord led by Umberto Bossi, that has Europe talking.
The Lega Nord, or Northern League, is a successionist party that aims to separate Lombardia-Veneto from the rest of Italy. Being a regional party, the Northern League is never going to win an election nationwide but in these recent polls the party had its one of its best showing ever. It doubled its percentage to 8.3%. In Verona, the Northern League captured 27% of the vote by taking votes primarily from centre-left parties. In the town Crespadoro, fifty miles west of Venice, the Northern League took 53% of the vote.
So what’s got the Italians in the wealthy north of the country so angry?
The answer is primarily immigration. And it is not just Italy were the anger is so intense. In Spain’s election back in March that returned the Socialist Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, it was the regional parties that picked up seats. Immigration is a hot button issue across the continent. Might it also be a hot button and secret weapon for the GOP in the upcoming US elections?
What’s driving immigration to the United States and immigration to Europe are in essence the same thing though the causation is different. In sum, globalization is driving the most dramatic human migration since our ancestors wandered out of Africa. While I believe in free trade, I have serious doubts about globalization. In graduate school, free-market economics of the neo-liberal variety were heavily lauded. One of my professors, Stephan Haggard, is one of the principal architects of what is called the Washington Consensus. Now happily out of the classroom more than a decade, my real life experience as Wall Street professional and now as a director of non-profit that does development work tells me otherwise.
Here is one example how globalization is driving African migrants to Europe. In the Canary Islands, various non-profits have interviewed migrants wanting to know what was pushing them to take to the sea in small boats. What they have discovered was that a large portion, about 6 in 10, were fisherman from various countries along the Gulf of Guinea. Their complaint: there were no fish to catch. And so migration became a necessity. And the reason they are no fish to catch is because large fishing trawlers from Morocco, from China, from Japan and from Korea are over-fishing in the Gulf of Guinea. Africans are starving so the rest of the world can eat. And then European voters get angry when they are suddenly host to thousands of migrants.
While the issue of immigration now lies dormant in the US Presidential race because it is more of a hot button issue on the GOP side and that contest is already decided, the issue will be a factor come November. Most of the immigration into the United States comes from Latin America, the latest year I found data was 2004 and Latin Americans responsible for about 70% of undocumented migrants. Of this 2/3 is from Mexico. The question that Americans concerned about the steady migration of undocumented migrants into the United States from Mexico is what is driving it?
The answer is NAFTA. NAFTA simply destroyed the ability of small tenant farmers that grow corn to compete with large American agribusiness. A Mexican farmer is lucky to produce 40 bushels of corn an acre, an American agribusiness farm is unfornuate if it can not produce 180 bushels of corn an acre. Therein lies the problem.
As for une cressendo di rabia here come November. Expect it.
For more information on the Italian elections please visit: Italian Election Centre