052: Small Town Italian Politics

Living Villa Cappelli

In this episode, we catch up with some renovations happening at the villa and Paul’s adventure in local small town Italian politics.

Topics we cover:

• How we added three new bathrooms upstairs

• How we saved a lot of time and money by using existing sewer pipes instead of adding in new ones and new construction to our first floor

• How Paul loves using Farrow & Ball paints

• Paul’s explanation between dyes and pigments

• Impressionist paintings

• One villa guest who stayed with us, Natvar Bhavsar who used pigments in his painting

• Paul’s adventure in politics

• Three strange rules (strange to us) that exist in Italian elections

• First off there were 290 candidates for 17 city council seats

• One reason is each of the parties, of which there are many, they have to nominate a certain number of people in order to be considered a “list” or a “party”

• All these parties then form coalitions, there were three this election nominating three men for mayor

• The next rule that was strange was the fact that you have two votes for city council, and if you want to use both votes, one has to be for a man and one for a woman

• While understanding the thinking behind this, it seems like a strange law

• In a national election, you are voting for a party, not for a person

• In Italy, people always lament about how people here get jobs not so much based on merit, but on who they know, etc.

• However, when it comes to politics, most people don’t seem to be voting based on merits, but on the fact they are voting for their cousin, or their brother-in-law, or their neighbor, etc.

• The election outcome

• Why the one left wing coalition is not throwing his support behind the other left-wing coalition

• What it will take for Paul’s party to win in the runoff election

• Paul’s speech during the election

• Steven’s surprise in the passion and dedication people showed for a small town election, holding debates and getting very fired up

• How some of the people during the debates were spitting on the other candidates

• How the whole town almost shuts down a few days before the election

• There is a 48 media blackout before the election

• What the incumbents did to win the election

• The results of the election for Paul

• How because there are so many candidates running, a guy who got 2% of the vote got elected to city council

• Why this seems so confusing for us coming from a two party system

• NOTE/UPDATE: Paul’s party did not win in the runoff election

• Why Paul decided to run

• How Paul uses Facebook to influence the government here

Some more about Italian politics

• Italy is run through a Parliamentary Republic with a multi-party system.

• Italy has been a Parliamentary Republic since June 2, 1946 when the monarchy was abolished

• Executive power is held by the Council of Ministers which is led by a Prime Minister

• Legislative power is held by two house of parliament primarily, and secondarily by the Council of Ministers which can introduce bills and holds the majority of the parliament

• The judiciary is independent of the executive and legislative and headed by the High Council of the Judiciary

Paul's Speech: