Posted October 29th, 2009 by Lazzaro Pietragnoli
The Italian Democratic party has a new national leader: Pierluigi Bersani, a former government minister under Romano Prodi. He was not nominated by the national assembly, nor appointed by the members. He was instead elected last Sunday by more than 2.8 million people that voted in a consultation open to the party’s supporters.
The party organised nearly 10,000 ballot boxes around the country and sympathisers (even 16 year olds and legal immigrants that do not have the right to vote in the national election) had a decisive say in the choice.
The constitution of the party provides that everyone who shares the party’s values and its manifesto can choose the national leader and the 20 regional leaders. While a first round of vote, restricted to party’s members, selects a shortlist of candidates, it is not necessary to have paid the annual membership to take part in the final election.
Posted October 13th, 2009 by Lazzaro Pietragnoli
At the Conservative Conference, in Manchester, David Cameron has used one of the most common argument to attack the European Union, the lack of democracy, but he has only showed his own ignorance.
Talking to the conference he siad: “People who think of themselves as progressives have fallen in love with an institution that no one elects, no one can remove, and that hasn’t signed off its accounts for over a decade”.
Which institution was he talking about? Maybe the directly elected European Parliament? Or was he talking about the European Commission, that has to receive the confidence of the EP and that (remember about Mr. Santer) can be sacked by the Parliament itself?
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Posted May 28th, 2009 by Lazzaro Pietragnoli
I got a letter from the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin: I have found it last Saturday morning, along with the party’s magazine “Hope & Glory” and a standing order form (just in the case I would like to subscribe to the party).
I do not think they have now started targeting people like me – I have clearly a name that reveals I am not a member of “this island race” (to put it in their own words) not to mention a red and yellow “Vote Labour” poster on the window. All the material was anonymously put in my letterbox.
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Posted May 3rd, 2009 by Lazzaro Pietragnoli
Today’s Observer publishes a long report and a leader comment on the electoral rise of the BNP and the risk that they will elect an MEP at the June European elections.
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