Italy’s Referendum and Political Crisis: Democracy Against Neoliberalism

‘Listening to the media, you would think that yesterday’s Italian referendum results were yet another victory of right-wing populism against democracy. The situation, however, is much more complex than this, and the No victory is a victory for democracy and for the defense of social rights worth celebrating.
The constitutional reform proposed by Matteo Renzi’s government was politically illegitimate in its method and antidemocratic in its content. The current parliament was selected with an electoral law that has been judged as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. Moreover, Renzi’s government was created after he managed to hijack the Democratic Party (PD), marginalizing its left and the former majority by secretly organizing a “No” vote in the parliament against the presidential candidate — Romano Prodi — put forward by the PD leadership.’
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