Aniseh Bassiri, international affairs expert living in Italy, believes that only technical government would carry the best chances to resolve the economic problems of the country.
Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi who is a doctoral student at King's College London answers YJC's questions about Italy parliament election in a written answer.
Text of the interview is as follows,
1. Since the economic situation is the most important agenda for political groups in the next parliamentary election, which of the groups from the left to right will have the best solution for the economic problem?
Only a technical government would carry the best chances to resolve the economic problems of the country, but since this is not an option, Italy’s best shot in overcoming its economic and financial crisis would be a continuation of Monti’s leadership through the election of the center coalition led by him. Whoever will be in power will need to carry on the European measures introduced in the last year, but the risk is that both the center-left and the center-right coalitions would be way too politicized to do that.
2. How do you see the Berlusconi’s bloc chance to take the power in the election since he was facing many scandals when he was in office?
The pools released last Friday, the last one available given the two-weeks halt prior to the elections, give the centre-left coalition as leading, even though the margin with the Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition has diminished to only 5-6 points. The doubt still lies on the Senate result, which because of the electoral law in place, might destabilize the results predicted and force the Pierluigi Bersani’s centre-left coalition to govern in accord with Monti’s centrist alliance.
3. Due to the fact that austerity measures in the past two years have hurt the citizens of Italy, how do you evaluate the pro-European and pro-German blocs in the election?
The debate over Europe and more in general over the Italian foreign policy has been very limited throughout the electoral campaign; therefore it is very difficult to judge. Italy is divided on this topic and many of the racing parties had internal frictions over where to stand on the economic measures imposed by Germany and on the future of Europe in more general terms. Although euro skepticism is spreading for economic and also political reasons, Monti has been and still continues to be a strong supporter of the measures promoted by the EU and the respect and international credential that Italy regained under his ruling makes it difficult for the other parties to completely disregard a pro-German and pro-European position.