To quote Hamlet

We are gearing up for the new elections in Sicily after the resignation of the President Lombardo.   What a dunghill.   We have 47 logos registered for the elections at the end of October, and very few people know what they are or who they stand for.  As usual in Sicily, it will be an election of manouvring for position.   The parties – or lists – as we have are not out and out political parties, but you will vote for a list that then gives its support to a list with more votes and so on until you get to a point where an assembly can be formed.   It goes without saying that many of the lists are really nonexistent – they exist on paper to divide the vote, and then will give their support to the list that actually created them.   This show of democracy means that voting for a list means you cannot vote for a party or person.  The list will decide who to support in the end, so voting anti lombardo, for example, gives no certainty that the final list wont support Lombardo in a new government.

Of course, one cant help feeling that the system has been designed by politicians for the benefit of politicians and stuff the voters.    We, in Sicily, are blessed with various ‘autonomous movements’ all interchangeable and amorphous.  What it means is that we will end up with an assembly with a tiny coalition majority openly against the president of the Region and SIcily will remain in a state of catatonic inertia for another 5 years.

To cap it all, the outgoing president, under investigation for mafia activity has announced he will not be standing, but has nominatied his 23 year old student son as a candidate instead.  We really are scraping the bottom of the democratic barrel.