Carfagna vs Vendola?

So much have been said about minister Mara Carfagna’s election with more than 55 thousand votes in Campania. Was it a personal success? Was it an appreciation for what she has done as minister? For sure it has been a remarkable result. Actually what did she do as a minster to gain such a consensus? Searching on the web you will hardly find an explanation. Neither on the Wikipedia page about her.

So what do all that votes mean?

If we look for example at Nichi Vendola we have a much more clear (sorry if you would have said ‘clearer’) explanation. He was the former president of Apulia, he won first the primary election within the centre-left against the will of party establishment and then was confirmed in the office with 67% of votes. So we can say that people of Apulia are happy with its performance.

So what? Sometimes election’s results mean reward for one’s performance and sometimes not.

And the winner is…?

It is quite funny how in Italy after election everybody uses to claim a victory. Sometimes it maybe ridiculous, sometimes just usual, and it is fair to say when it goes too far.

The simple arithmetic says that center-right held on the 2 regions it already had (Veneto and Lombardia), and took from the center left further 4 regions (Piemonte, Lazio, Campania and Calabria). As Financial Times said “the real winners were seen as the ‘no vote’ by a third of Italians who stayed away, and the anti-immigration Northern League, which is allied to Mr. Berlusconi.”

Something truly reasonable can be read here and here.

Are Italians correctly informed in order to fairly express their vote?

Italians are not fairly informed about what happens in their country. If this statement seem to be too strong just give a look at things like this to get a confirmation.

The three main causes of biased information are

1. Communicative noise from source of information supposed to be reliable
2. Too much complexity in the few fair analyses available to large public
3. Lack of effectiveness in the way information is made available to large public

Here is called communicative noise the misleading message sent by sources of information supposed to be reliable that send out with the same voice official statements or statistics and pure propaganda without clearly distinguish what is what. The noise can easily cause misunderstanding in people lacking time and will to dig into the news to figure out what is really going on.

The excess in complexity is quite common among fair analyses. Highly skilled professionals (for example here and here) invest time in the effort to give an explanation to economic and political events. However the result is usually hard to understand for people without specific education and serious interest.

The ineffectiveness existing communication is due to messages too concise (e.g. slogan, newspaper title, short tv announcement or advertisement) or too detailed (long discussion on very specific topics on blog or never-ending discussion in public debates). What is definitely missing is a series of summaries well structured and easy to understand.

So what?

We can complain and talk about how bad is the situation or we can try to fix it. How? Internet is an extremely powerful tool to spread ideas and social network can easily compound the transmission mechanism. A fair information is absolutely feasible: why don’t we give it a try?

Who watches the watchmen?

Italian website Lavoce.info reported about a group of economists collecting in a book all the public statements of Italian finance minister Giulio Tremonti which they proved to be incorrect, misleading or contradictory. The title sounds like “Tremonti, Misuser’s guide”.

The issue raised by La voce is why newspapers and other media did not pointed out these issues in the past. Again comes out the ancient question posed in latin “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?” meaning who watches the watchmen?

In a modern democracy Media should watch over governors, over their behavior and their declarations, but who should watch over Media active execution of this crucial role?

We should.

La voce is a very good example of clear explanation of what is going on in Italian and international Economy, probably the best available in Italian language. However it is written by economists and a minimum education is required to understand the articles. Furthermore it is a website and it reaches far less people than newspaper and television do.

What can be done to avoid leaving unwatched watchers?

We need to endorse those who clearly provide transparent information and clear explanation of news and deny support to media not pursuing these goals.

That light difference

Scott Brown, a Republican former model, won the Massachusetts Senate race. The election, in a state where Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans (and independents account for around half of the electorate), was held to replace Ted Kennedy, a Democratic stalwart who died last year(The Economist).

If you look at the event just in US Politics perspective, it was a clear message to President Obama and Democratic party and will affect dramatically the fate of the health-care. But those voters also expressed what should be considered normal in a normal country: their democracy is healthy and they watch over their governors.

What can we say about Italy?

According to a recent pool trust in Italian premier is stable and his party is likely to won in upcoming administrative elections.The performance of Mr. Berlusconi as premier is pretty well known not only in Italy but also abroad since many foreign newspapers and magazines have discussed some of his more controversial government actions as well as some parts of his private and public life.

Do Italians watch over their governors?

Can Italian democracy be healthy if voters do not endorse good behavior and sanction bad?

The answer may explain why Italian politicians seem so lacklustre when they do not look definitely weird.