One of the more interesting figures on the Italian political scene is Antonio di Pietro, founder of the Italia dei Valori party, and someone who first came to public prominence as a prosecuting magistrate during the mani pulite era, when Italy’s ruling political class was decimated by investigations into corruption.
Di Pietro’s party, founded in 1998, was one of the party’s that had a surprising amount of success in last year’s election, winning 5 senate seats and 20 seats in the chamber of deputies (though, as Di Pietro admits now, much was done through ‘franchising’ – and the party suffered an embarassing and tactically devastating defection of one of their senators, De Gregorio , to the centre-right).
Apart from ‘franchising’, Di Pietro and Italia dei Valori must be credited with harnessing the internet in a way few political leaders in Italy, or elsewhere have managed. Di Pietro publishes a regular blog, and broadcasts cabinet meetings on YouTube.
Adressing the party faithful at the weekend, at the annual Italia dei Valori congress, Di Pietro commented on one of the great problems of Italian politics: “The distance that today separates the electorate from the political parties is an abyss, it’s the duty of the parties to bridge this gap that, unfortunately, grows wider all the time.”[1]
And Di Pietro’s latest attempt to bridge that gap? He’s gone and bought an Island, which will be opened to interested persons to experiment with new forms of participatory democracy. Lacking the budget of Berlusconi, though, the Island is a virtual one – in the painfully trendy Second Life. Di Pietro’s Island is called Neverland, and Second Lifers can ‘teleport’ there through this link
The man is either mad or a genius…
1La distanza che oggi separa gli elettori dai partiti è un abisso, il compito della politica è di colmare questa distanza che, purtroppo, cresce sempre più nel tempo.”