| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
ON FEBRUARY 24-25, Italy held an early parliamentary election, which saw the center-left coalition headed by Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani win the race and gain 55% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. But their slight lead in the Senate, with just five seats more than the center-right bloc's, has called into question the political survivability of the legislature, as well as the government to be formed by Bersani. For Italy, political instability is a familiar and ordinary phenomenon. During the past sixty-five years, 50 governments have succeeded one another there due to political crises. But for all that, the current early election may well prove to be a turning point in the country's political process, which in the last 18 years proceeded, according to Italian experts, under the banner of "Berlusconi-ism."
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