Hope springs eternal.
Onésimo Alvarez-Moro
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There are two ways of looking at the outcome of the Italian elections, in which the centre-left coalition has won a wafer-thin victory. The first is strictly economic. Most non-Italian commentators have emphasised that the urgent structural reforms required of the country are unlikely to be carried through by a government reliant on such a heterogeneous coalition, and enjoying so slim a majority in the upper house. There may be debate about the exact nature of these economic reforms, but little doubt that so precarious a government cannot carry them through. Romano Prodi, in this analysis, emerges as a "lame duck" prime minister even before he has taken to the water.
However, there is another way of looking at recent events in Italy and it is probably more important than the first. These elections have not only been about economics. In a profound way they have addressed the connection between politics and ethics. Many politicians, both in the land of Machiavelli and outside it, have denied the existence of any link at all. But they do so at considerable risk, both to their own integrity and to the future of democracy in Europe.
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