My Comment to New York Times About Opinion Piece Concerning Murder Trial in Perugia

(I included a link to this comment in an earlier issue but it was incorrect.  The piece in the Times was very critical of Italian justice system)

 
I live in Italy, but have not followed this case terribly closely. I had assumed that the guy already convicted of the killing would testify against the other two. The “fast track” trial he got was a type of plea bargain. In the USA on of the defendants doesn’t get any deal without agreeing to testify against the others.
There are two good things, in my opinion, about the Italian criminal justice system — no death penalty and no belief that the best thing to do is to lock people up and throw away the key.
The rest of the system, as well as the civil law system, here is pretty bad. The European Union has constantly admonished Italy about the slowness and inefficiency of its legal system.
Under Fascism, of course, the system was in part perverted. As a result the Italian constitution of 1946 established a totally independent judiciary. It is so independent that it does not have the checks and balances we have in the USA among the various elements of the government. Berlusconi is trying to reign in the judiciary, but because of his constant personal legal troubles, his attempts are seen by most as self-serving. His idea may be right; he is the wrong guy to do it.

Amanda may be guilty or innocent. The fact that the trial already has gone on for five months is one of many facts one could cite to indicate that faith in the Italian system is not warranted. Almost every Italian I know agrees with me on this point.

USA Soccer Team.  Eating My Words

I wrote about how outclassed this team was in the match against Italy.  They were similarly mismatched in the following game against Brazil.  Then, for reasons I don’t understand, the team caught fire and defeated Egypt (that had beat Italy) and Spain (number one ranked team in world). Now they play Brazil again for the championship of this tournament.

If, after the first two matches, you had gone to a sports betting place and bet on the USA to make it to the final game, the odds you would have received against this possibility would have allowed you to recoup all your losses in the stock market (and/or decline in the value of your home) in one transaction
 
They Are Smiling in Italy

Although I am in Florida this week, I am sure they are smiling in Italy at the stories of Senator John Ensign and Governor Mark Sanford both admitting to their affairs in the same week.  Both had been mentioned on the long list of possible 2012 Republican presidential candidates. Their main mistake was being born in the wrong country.  No need in Italy to admit such indiscretions.  If the news does somehow get out in Italy of an affair by a politician, people just yawn.

Perils of Pronunciation

As I’ve mentioned before, Italians are much more precise than Americans in pronouncing words.  One disadvantage for me of this face is that Italians often don’t immediately recognize a word if it is slightly mispronounced.  As you can guess, I frequently do mispronounce a word.  In such a case I have to say it again, more slowly, and how the person listening can figure it out.

The opposite is not true. I can understand easily words in English that are mispronounced by an Italian.

School is Out

Children in different nations probably have different rituals to celebrate the end of the school year.  In Pistoia it is a massive water fight in one of the piazzas. 

Summer Entertainment

The local government may not do the best job in Italy of keeping the streets clean or fixing potholes, but they do sponsor (along with others) a full range of summer entertainment for the populace – concerts, festivals, outdoor movies, etc.  A grand tradition that may go back to the “bread and circuses” philosophy of the Roman Emperors.

This Week in Italy 326

Personal Items

I will be in Florida from June 22-29 to attend a Memorial Service on June 27 in Ft. Myers for my recently deceased brother-in-law. Although I will be busy with family matters, I will have some free time in case anyone reading this letter is in the area and would like to touch base. My sister’s phone number in Florida is 239-481-2059

Somebody sent me a subscription to the McSweeney’s literary journal. I never received a gift card, only copies of the journal. So thank you to whomever sent it if that person is a reader of this newsletter.

The K.C. Jones Band

This is name of local Pistoia combo. Clearly it is not an Italian name. I asked the leader about it and was told it was named after the American basketball player of the same name who played in the 1950s and 1960s and then became a coach. American professional basketball was practically unknown in Italy during those years. Maybe there is an American band somewhere named after an Italian soccer player of 50 years ago whose name has always been unknown in the USA, but I doubt it.

The Umteenth Example of All Things Bad that Arrive in Italy from USA

The news has a story of the arrest in Italy of members of the Italian motorcycle group called Hells Angels.

Chuckles

Does this brand of candy still exist in the USA? When I was a kid, I liked them, assorted fruit flavored candies covered in sugar. They were probably on the worst candy list of the American Dental Association. This type of candy still exists in Italy, and the flavors are much better than those of Chuckles.

The Symposium of the Club of Europe

The Club of Europe is an international organization that supports programs to provide a European sense of understanding and unity. The Pistoia chapter recently invited a representative group of local residents from other nations to discuss their experiences in Pistoia and to make suggestions. The mayor of Pistoia and the President of the Province of Pistoia were there. Some people spoke of broad issues; others made specific complaints. One person complained at how dirty the city was. The mayor said that the city could increase the frequency of street cleaning, but already there was a large deficit. He noted, as I have in the past, that Italians take little pride in the public space. It is perfectly acceptable to throw things on the ground, and nobody will reprimand you. He said when he went to Austria as a youth on a soccer team trip, he threw something on the ground, and immediately a local citizen admonished him. He did not understand German, but he got the point. When you go to the more German area of northern Italy, the streets are much cleaner.

Italian Schools

In general Italians think there school system is a good one, but when schools throughout the European Union are compared, Italy ends up spending more than the average and having student performance that is 2/3 of a year behind the European average. I think it is difficult to get high grades in Italy, but traditionally few students flunk. The government recently passed rules that strengthen academic standards and also require that students be flunked whose conduct grade is too low. The percentage of students who flunk has gone up noticeably. Of course, some of these failures can be made up in summer school. Whereas in the USA, there are commercial cram courses for students taking the SAT, in Italy there are cram schools for students to redo courses they took in high school in order to qualify for the university.

Given the child-centered environment in Italy, it is not surprising that school performance lags. If little Luigi doesn’t do well at school, it must be the fault of the teacher. Italians in general are quite cynical, but in the matter of their schools, they are overly optimistic.

The Brazilian War Memorial at Pistoia

This is the war memorial to Brazilian troops who fought in Italy in WWII. The curator of this memorial was at the Club of Europe dinner. I asked him why Brazil entered WWII when no other Latin American nation did so. He told me, as I had expected, that Brazil was pressured by the USA to do so. In return the USA agreed to buy a certain amount of exports from Brazil. Brazil sent 25,000 troops to Italy; a little fewer than 500 were killed. The nation of Brazil gives no money for the maintenance of the quite lovely war memorial at Pistoia. The curator said that Brazil does not want to pay pensions to the soldiers who fought in WWII or their survivors. So it ignores this part of the country’s history.

Italy 3 USA 1

I watched the soccer game between the two nations. Ironically the guy who scored two goals for Italy was born in the USA, but came to Europe to play professional soccer. In general it appears to me that the best player on the American team might be equal in skill to the least talented one on the Italian squad. It is sort of the opposite of basketball. The best player on the Italian national basketball team might qualify for the last spot on a team made up of the best American players (which our national team is not).

Article in May 11, 2009 Time Magazine about Silvio Berlusconi

The author is one of the best known commentators on life and culture in Italy. Note that the Italians forgive Sivlio’s vices. They are not upset by his lack of accomplishments as a leader. In a country where politics is often done in the fashion of the theatre, he is a supreme showman. One of his first jobs was as a singer on a cruise liner. If this is what the Italians prefer, this is certainly their right. They simply should not be surprised that what they find entertaining and/or forgivable much of the rest of the world sees as buffoonery

Silvio Berlusconi: An Italian Mirror

By BEPPE SEVERGNINI

What do Italians make of Silvio Berlusconi? Easy. Most think: “He’s one of us.” He loves his family, his football, his friends, his food. And his money, of course. He praises the church in the morning, family values in the afternoon and hangs around with young women at night — at 72, that’s quite an achievement. He is fun, no doubt. On the left, most politicians are boring. Beating them? Piece of cake, for Silvio the maverick.

Many Italians don’t care about his conflicts of interest (who hasn’t got a few?) or his problems with the law (defendants are more simpatico than prosecutors). Broken promises, half-truths, unanswered questions? The word accountability doesn’t translate well into Italian. This is the land of human nature, as one American traveller once said. And of emotional politics. France is a bit like that too. It’s no coincidence that a bright, quick, short populist, who also happens to be a bit of a ladies’ man, is running the show in Paris. Like us, the French see politicians the way the British see City bankers. We forget and forgive, even though we shouldn’t.

His gaffes? The majority of Italians think Berlusconi just speaks his mind, and they don’t care if foreigners are puzzled, or worse. Some remarks are unforgivable, of course. Obama’s suntan, jokes about concentration camps, sexist comments. If you head a government you must know that your words — reported instantly, compressed into sound bites — can baffle foreigners. Italians abroad know this. They complain, rightly, that Berlusconi’s faux pas allow those who don’t like Italy to ridicule us, ignoring the good things we do around the world.

To be fair, foreign media sometimes exaggerate the incidents. Calling out to the American President in front of Queen Elizabeth II, after the official photo op at the G-20 in London (“Mr. Obamaaa! I’m Mr. Berlusconi!”) was a lovely Borat moment — harmless, and quite funny. Talking on his mobile while Angela Merkel was waiting for him at the NATO summit? He was just showing off (“I can convince Turkish leader Erdogan to accept Rasmussen as head at NATO. Leave it to me, guys.”) And when he told earthquake victims in Abruzzo to think of their situation “like a weekend of camping,” sure, it didn’t sound good to an outsider. But most Italians understood Mr. B. was just trying to sdrammatizzare, to play down the situation, defuse the tension.

Berlusconi is a seasoned politician (he was first in office in 1994, and he’s the only European head of government born before World War II), and he knows that international misunderstandings don’t harm him at home — and often quite the contrary. Those who criticize him don’t vote for him anyway.

His gaffes are not part of any grand strategy. Most likely they are spontaneous, the result of nouveaux-riches insecurities, fermented in self-esteem and turned into cockiness. Proud of his achievements — first real estate, then television and soccer, finally politics — the man thinks he can say what he likes, when he likes to whomever he likes.

He’s popular. A mixture of Juan Perón and Frank Sinatra. Never a dull moment. Does the Italian media criticize him? Not his papers and his TV stations. Nor, with a few exceptions, state-controlled outlets such as Rai. The right-wing press adores him. The left-wing press despises him. Only a few papers — including my own Corriere della Sera — discuss him day by day, case by case, column by column.

Does this make Italy an authoritarian state? Of course not. We are too anarchic to allow anyone to tell us what do for long (they all failed, from Caesar Augustus to Benito Mussolini). Berlusconi has won three elections, lost two, and democracy is alive and (almost) well. Italy is like a postmodern signoria — think the Sforza in Milan, the Medici in Florence — led by a benevolent elder well-liked by his subjects.

Is Berlusconi a good Prime Minister? Let’s just say he’s not much worse than his predecessors, and he sells himself better. He hasn’t solved Italy’s perennial problems — runaway public debt, red tape, organized crime, corruption, a grinding justice system and aging infrastructure — but at least he’s provided stability. Italy averaged almost a government a year between the end of World War II and the turn of the century. Berlusconi completed his term between 2001 and 2006; re-elected in 2008, he may well last until 2013.

The truth is that Berlusconi is not only Italy’s head of government, but the nation’s autobiography. He combines generosity, inconsistency, acting talent, stamina, tactical lapses of memory and loyalty. He promises things he doesn’t do, and does things he’s never mentioned. His Italian opponents — even the best, the most honest and lucid — are right to worry. Not about Berlusconi himself. But about the Berlusconi inside them.

Severgnini, a columnist for Corriere della Sera, is the author of La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind

One Thing Beppe Severgnini Forgot to Say in the Article Above

With his face lifts and hair transplants, Silvio is hardly a model of growing old gracefully. Here too he mirrors Italy. Plastic surgeons in Italy estimate that half of their clients are over 65.

Firing an Employee in Italy

I’ve mentioned before that one reason Italian companies don’t like to give a full time job to an employee is the difficulty in firing anyone. Recently an Italian court ruled that if an employee is sent to prison, you cannot fire him for this reason although you don’t have to pay his salary while he is incarcerated.

Italy and Judaism

Eighty percent of the world’s Jews live in the USA or Israel. Italy traditionally has had a small Jewish population, but I find that my Italian friends know very little about Judaism or Jewish life, far less than a typical American would know. (It may be that many Italians have never had a Jewish friend).  An example of this was when I attend the film “Two Lovers” (which revolves around a Jewish family in New York) with a well educated Italian friend.  She did not know what a Bar Mitzvah is.

You Can Say Anything in Italian Politics

The European press, especially in Great Britain, is almost uniformly highly critical of Silvio Berlusconi. He has accused these newspapers of being in an alliance against him orchestrated by his political opponents in Italy. Now the European press was also very critical of George W. Bush.  Still, I can’t imagine President Bush claiming that these newspapers were in some conspiratorial alliance with the Democratic Party in the USA to sully his image.  How could the Democratic Party in the USA exercise influence over foreign newspapers?  In Italy, however, you can make such a claim.

Britain vs. Berlusconi

I’ve mentioned that British newspapers are particularly outspoken in their criticism of Silvio. An Italian friend asked me why.  The simplest answer: every week Berlusconi says and/or does something that would effectively end the career of a politician in Great Britain. Two vastly different political cultures.

Here is a simple example.  Recently some women ministers in the Gordon Brown government in Great Britain resigned saying that they were mere “window dressing” and Brown is a sexist.  In the Berlusconi government it is obvious that all the women are “window dressing” or to be more exact “eye candy.”  Unless they are morons, they know that they were not chosen for their competence.

A Reminder about Wealth and Italy

 A reader wrote to remind me of something I have stated before.  The statistics showing income for Italians among the lowest in Western Europe are misleading.  Italy has a vibrant underground economy (and I don’t mean just the Mafia) so that most people earn more than the official statistics indicate.  Still the Italian economy has not been growing in recent years.

How Do You Leave the Catholic Church in Italy?

Of course, you can stop attending the Catholic Church as many Italians have.  You can start to attend a non Catholic Church, but the options are slim.   Neither of these steps gets you off the rolls as a Catholic, Here is how it is done. (From the Florentine newspaper www.theflorentine.net)

Increasing numbers of Italians are expressing a desire to leave the Catholic faith. The Italian daily Il Giornale recently reported that the diocese of Milan received over 200 requests to leave the church in the first five months of 2009, already equal the total number received in 2008. Those seeking to officially sever their ties to the church must complete a request form and give it to a local priest, who forwards it to Vatican authorities.  ‘As a pastor, I worry and suffer every time I have to sign, as I did this morning, when I signed five or six of these requests’, said Luigi Manganini, a priest in Milan. Manganini called the trend of so-called debaptisms ‘worrying’ because the majority of requests have come from Catholics between 40 and 50 years old. ??He explained that ‘It is out of the question to speak of “debaptism”, since baptism is an irreversible sacrament for he who believes, and cannot be erased in any way. In the case of an explicit request of someone wanting a certificate to abandon the Catholic faith, the church limits itself to writing this in the registries where the act of baptism was recorded’, the cleric stressed. According Maganini, priests are encouraged to speak with those who seek to leave the church and enjoin them to rethink their decision.??Applicants, however, rarely do so, Manganini claims, even though once separated from the church, the person is prohibited from participating in its sacraments, including a funeral mass in a Catholic church.

Sad News

Pistoia’s soccer team, because it finished among the bottom four squads in its league, is being demoted from C-1 league to C-2 league.  I don’t know if you can fall from C-2 to D level: D may be only semi-professional.  In short the team may have fallen as far as it can go.  Near the end of the season, teams with a possibility of going to a higher level (because they are in top four spots in their league) or like Pistoia, with risk of falling down to lower level, often makes “deals” with teams they are playing (who are in the middle of league so that the game is not so important) to win the game.  Apparently Pistoia could not make enough deals.  To make matters worse, it turns out that the players haven’t received their paychecks since December.

Revisiting The Amnesty of 2006 for Some Italian Prisoners

I wrote twice before about this amnesty (www.thisweekinitaly.com number 186, June 9, 2006 “Amnesty for Italian Prisoners” and number 209, October 14, 2006 “The General Parson of Prisoners”).  The rationale for the amnesty was that the prisons were severely overcrowded.  If you are running out of space in prisons, it makes sense to let out some of the less dangerous old prisoners to make room for more dangerous new prisoners. No matter whom you released, some of them will commit new crimes immediately, and the amnesty will become politically unpopular.  Even though the amnesty was supported by a majority of both sides of the political spectrum in Italy, the center-right pretends that it was all the doing of the center left.

In fact the short-term recidivism rate among those released early was 26% compared to an average rate of 63% for all prisoners released.  Of course, those released should have been better prospects to go straight than the typical prisoner.  Was the amnesty a failure or a success?  It is an arguable point, but almost every Italian will tell you that it was a failure simply because of crimes committed by those released.

Amanda Knox Trial for Murder in Perugia

This trial has received a lot of news in USA, Great Britain, where the victim was from, and in Italy.  At this link you will find an opinion piece by Timothy Eagen in the New York Times http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/an-innocent-abroad/?apage=7#comments  In the comments at bottom of page, my comment is number 167.  Many commentators to this article found his piece unduly biased in favor of the defendant.  I was surprised at the level of emotional involvement in the case among the almost 500 people commenting on the article on Times web site.

Election Results in Italy

The largest party, that of Berlusconi, stayed even.  The far left, already quite small, got a little smaller. The major left party fell back.  The center parties gained and the far right party gained. Throughout Europe far right parties gained.  As far as I can tell this is not because they espouse a more free market economy or more limited government: their main appeal seems to be their anti-immigration stance. 

Multiple Copies of This Newsletter

 I have tried to find a way to send out my newsletter from a single source so as to eliminate multiple copies to recipients, but this attempt has failed. Some are not receiving any copy. So I am going back to multiple sources of distribution which results, unfortunately, in multiple copies for many subscribers.

At the Bank

 I watched at the bank as a customer approached the window of a teller.  The teller received a phone call, apparently from a friend, and chatted amiably while the customer waited for service. Now in the USA, a customer might well think “Hey, I am here to do business; talk to your friends on your own time.” Furthermore, in the USA such personal calls are not allowed while serving customers. In Italy, a customer is more likely to think “Talking to your friends is important; I can wait a little.”

 This little vignette illustrates an important point. Italians, like all people, would like their nation to be more prosperous with more individual wealth.  I don’t know the extent to which Italians realize that the importance they give to family and friends leads to values and behaviors that may be laudable but are not economically efficient. I doubt that Italians would want to adopt American work rules and attitudes. They certainly would not accept the reduced holiday and vacation time in the USA.   It is not by chance that in Italy there are nice places to eat everywhere while in the USA there is a profusion of fast food outlets.

 Holiday Weekends

 Another small example of why Italy is not more prosperous.  In Italy whenever a holiday (of which there are many) occurs on Thursday or Tuesday, you can be sure many will stretch it to a four day weekend. If it is on Friday or Monday, the same thing may well happen.  As a result, many offices and businesses are closed for two days, not just one. (Of course you also have the one day strikes that seem to take place on Monday or Friday.) All these little “extra” holidays add up to a noticeable loss in the Gross National Product.  Once again, Italians may well prefer a system in which they get more time off of work, but they have at least to admit the economic costs of these practices.

 Mangiandando

 This is a charity event in a nearby town.  The name indicates that one eats while going along.  You buy a ticket and walk one kilometer to the first stop where you get an antipasto. One kilometer later is the first course, then after another kilometer the second course, and at the end of four kilometers the dessert. Wine of course is at all stops.  It sounded like fun. What we did not know is that this is almost exclusively an event for teenagers and other young people, many of whom bring their own wine and other drinks and get drunk.  Sort of a traveling fraternity party. Our group may have been the oldest persons there.  In addition it takes a lot of organization to feed the 1800 participants efficiently.  Efficiency is not the number one Italian virtue.  On the positive side, the landscape in this area of Tuscany is absolutely lovely.

 At the end of the trek, there was a rock band playing.  I did a little dance with one of our group members that gained the applause of the young crowd.  I believe their appreciation was analogous to what Dr. Samuel Johnson once said about dogs who walk on their hind legs – the amazing thing is not that they do it well but that they do it at all.  All in all it was a new adventure, but I don’t think we will go next year.

 Occupational Deaths

 I’ve mentioned before that deaths or serious injuries on the job are often big news in Italy. Now if someone dies at work, there are probably three main possibilities for the reason (1) the workplace is unsafe and does not meet safety regulations, (2) the workers have not been properly trained as to how to avoid accidents, or (3) the worker does something foolish in violation of safety rules. In Italy it seems that (1) is almost always assumed to be the case.  The employer is immediately castigated. Why?  It may be in part from Italy’s leftist heritage which sees workers as noble and management as bad. I believe there is another at least partial explanation. Remember that in Italy, when something goes wrong there is a tendency immediately to ask “who is at fault.” A family has lost a loved member.  It is in “bad taste” to point out that the person died through his own fault. So the employer (an impersonal company that has no feelings to be offended) is assumed to be at fault.

 Life Imitates Art

 In the film “Analyze That,” the Mafia boss sees a psychiatrist. Ditto for Tony Soprano in the TV series “The Sopranos.”  In Sicily recently a judge granted a request of a convicted Mafia boss that he be moved from house arrest to the mental health ward of a hospital because he is suffering from depression.

 My Friends Visit the Questura

 Two friends, a married couple, recently went to this office to pick up their permission forms to stay in Italy. After a four-hour wait, they got to the window. The clerk asked for their passports. Of course, the letter telling them that the forms were ready did not indicate that one needed a passport to pick them up. My friends complained noisily. Eventually the clerk gave them the forms after exacting a promise that they would return later with passports (a minor victory). When the looked at the forms, the husband’s expired in February 2010 and the wife’s in February 2011.    It won’t be easy getting corrected whichever one is now incorrect.

 Latest Contender for Worst Tourists Award – the Russians

 The Russians are not in Italy in great numbers, but a Swiss friend told me that they are the predominant group now in Turkey and some Arab nations, which are a four-hour flight from Russia. At hotels where the price includes meals, the Russians take huge amounts from the buffet to their table, much of which they don’t eat. As a result, the hotels now quote a higher price to Russian tour groups. Of course the Russians drink too much and are quite loud.  They also are rude to hotel staff and don’t tip. In Arabic nations Russian women sunbathe topless and then are upset because the Muslim hotel staff cannot wait upon a woman who is so undressed. I can’t tell how widespread the views of my Swiss friend are. This is the first time I have heard bad tales about Russian tourists.

 A Scandal or a Stroke of Luck

 Berlusconi’s “relationships” with young girls continue to get a lot of play in the foreign press and less in Italy. Silvio managed to have the courts suppress (under Italy’s privacy law) photos taken at his New Year’s Eve party in Sardinia, although the fact that he flew the babes up in military planes is raising a little fuss.

 Berlusconi knows that his personal antics, as silly or sinister as they appear abroad, will not lose him votes in Italy. As these fill the front pages, what is not discussed are more serious issues that may be more politically problematic for him.

 Italy, as all nations, is suffering from the world economic downturn – less than some but suffering nevertheless. Although a massive financial stimulus through government spending might or might not be a good idea, it is not an option in Italy.  The public debt is so high in Italy that it cannot borrow the funds for such an intervention. So Berlusconi has to say (1) that the crisis is not that bad in Italy and (2) that his government has already made a strong response. His opponents, of course, dispute both of these points.

 His personal problems thus may be a stroke of luck that keeps the financial crisis from being the pervasive topic of conversation and debate.

 My Personal Opinion

 In my opinion, Mr. Berlusconi probably does not have illicit relationships with 18 year old girls (Don’t ask me about women older than that.).  He is an incredible narcissist. He has facelifts and hair transplants to keep looking young.  Surrounding himself with young women is another way to deny the fact that he already is an old man. It is more sad than evil. If he lives long enough, he may well end up like the old guy who married Anna Nicole Smith. In Italy there is no expectation that a political leader should be a model of correct behavior.  If the leader makes a fool of himself, the Italians simply shrug their shoulders.  This is why the Naomi “scandal” means little in Italian politics.

 It is not irrational to say “I don’t care about the personal life of our political leaders; I only care about how well they govern.” The problem with politics in Italy is that both the personal life and the quality of governance are often quite low.

 Petition Problems

 Occasionally in the USA when someone presents a petition to be put on the ballot or to have a referendum, there is a challenge that the petition does not have the required  number of valid signatures. Near Pistoia recently there was a different petition problem. A court delayed the election because the petitions for both candidates each contained more signatures than there are voters in the district in which the election will be held.  Not too few—too many.

 My Litmus Test…

 ….for just how bad are Italian politics is whether the current Parliament will pass a law significantly reducing the number of members in Parliament. Both coalitions promised to do this in the last election. Both continue to say that they support this idea. Berlusconi has talked about gaining a million signatures on a petition to do so, but with a large majority in Parliament, why does his coalition need a petition campaign to pass such a law?  The major opposition party has announced it is ready to vote tomorrow to cut the size of Parliament in half. Still no bill has been introduced in Parliament on this topic.