Syriza’s ‘Bella Ciao’ Casts Shadow Over Italy President Vote
By Chiara Vasarri and Lorenzo Totaro Jan 27, 2015 8:14 AM ET
As Greeks welcome Syriza’s historical victory with the Italian partisan anthem “Bella Ciao,” Italian Premier Matteo Renzi is nervously eyeing resistance within his own party before a key presidential vote this week.
“By gaining a clear lead and moving to form a new government in a short time, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras is also galvanizing his Italian supporters, including a significant number of Renzi’s opponents within his party,” Francesco Galietti, founder of research firm Policy Sonar in Rome, said in a phone interview.
Renzi’s grip on the Democratic Party, or PD, will be closely-watched Jan. 29, when 1,009 national lawmakers and regional delegates meet in Rome to start voting for the new head of state, a post left vacant by 89-year-old Giorgio Napolitano earlier this month.
Some lawmakers within the left-wing PD minority, including Giuseppe Civati and Stefano Fassina, were part of a pro-Syriza delegation who visited Athens before the vote. Supporters of Nichi Vendola, leader of the Left, Ecology and Freedom party, one of the strongest supporters of Syriza in Italy, sang the World War II “Bella Ciao” anthem at a three-day event in Milan last week. Now, Vendola is trying to open a dialogue with the anti-Renzi line of the PD to see if they can join forces.
Possible Defections
“Numerous defections in the first three rounds of voting and an election that drags on past the fifth round will spell trouble” for the premier, Wolfango Piccoli, managing director at Teneo Intelligence in London, wrote in a Jan. 13 note to clients. Such an outcome would probably mark the beginning of the end for “his flagship reforms and the current legislature.”
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-26/syriza-s-bella-ciao-casts-shadow-over-italy-presidential-vote.html
