So, maybe you’ve heard that Italy had a pretty important election last Sunday. I don’t pretend to understand it all. But I’m going to try to do a little synopsis of it.

Even here in little Umbertide opinions and emotions ran high! Back in the day, Umbria voted reliably Communist. The party is the Democratic Party or the PD now. They had the most power until Sunday when they got less than 19% of the vote prompting Matteo Renzi the PD leader to resign. A real awakening for them.

The main players are the Five Star Movement, the Lega Nord (La Lega) or the League, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), and the PD.

The Five Star Movement won the most votes. The other big winner was the right-wing La Lega led by Matteo Salvini. But no one party or group reached the 40% necessary to form a stable parliamentary majority. The group achieving anything near this was the right-wing coalition formed by Forza Italia, La Lega and the Brothers of Italy (Fd’I) with 35%.

It is now up to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to decide which party leader to ask to try to form a government.

I am told that this is a huge deal in Italian politics. Sunday’s election marks the end of an era.

Italy now has to make a choice between a right-wing coalition led by Salvini and the Five Star populists. Europe has seen a big rise in the right in the last years. Here in Italy it comes mainly from two issues — austerity and immigration, both of which have hit Italians hard. Both parties that have gained most in this election are anti-immigration and Eurosceptic. 😕

Europe was shaken by this election but it has itself to blame. It has done far too little to help Italy deal with the huge influx of migrants across the Mediterranean, 640,000 in the last four years. They have insisted that arrivals be processed in the EU country where they touch land. This has left frontline countries with an intolerable burden that has fuelled anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiment. I am not Italian but I really resent the other countries in Europe for shirking their duties to a United Europe and dumping it on some of the poorest and least able to handle the crisis…Italy, Turkey, and Greece.

So to sum up…the two biggest winners have said they will not form an alliance. No one knows what the next Italian government will look like after the election. So, unless someone forms a coalition there will be another election in two months.

Finally, Umbria went hard for the center right. A big change from being reliably red.

I’m not sure this clarifies anything for you all. I got a lot of this info from the Italian papers myself so I could understand better even though I can’t vote.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knee update

So, today I had an awakening. I had a lesson with my Italian teacher today. She always asks about how I’m doing with my knee and all. So I vented that it was taking so long and wasn’t like in the US where people are walking in a week..blah, blah. She looked at me and said…sometimes it’s better to go slow like here in Italia rather than go, go, go faster, quicker like in the US. Suddenly it made sense. It’s my effing American mindset ! I need to chill!

Monday I get my final X-ray and consult with a doctor and I hope I get the OK to move forward with walking etc.