Demonstrators wearing Silvio Berlusconi and Umberto Bossi masks attend PD protest calling for 'Reconstruction. In the name of the Italian people', Rome, November,2011. Eric Vandeville/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
One of the most famous clichés in Italian contemporary political historiography is the phrase, lifted from Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa's novel Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), "For everything to stay the same, everything has to change." The recent formation of the first purely populist government in western Europe, a coalition between the MoVimento 5 Stelle and the Lega, satisfies the second part of the phrase. Whether or not it will be able to satisfy the first will have to be seen.
The political experience of the past two and a half decades raises serious doubts. Already 25 years ago, in the wake of the Tangentopoli scandals (a reference to the fact that firms that sought to win public contracts had to pay kickbacks to politicians) – a political cleaning out of the Augean stables under the banner of mani pulite (clean hands) dragged Italy through a political revolution that ultimately resulted in the collapse of Italy's main center-right and center-left parties – the Christian Democrats and the Socialists. New political formations filled the void, particularly Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Umberto Bossi's Lega Nord, as well as the revamped communists. From the political twists and turns that ensued, Berlusconi's Forza Italia emerged as the winner, with substantial support from Umberto Bossi's Lega Nord (LN).
