Voters Back Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Establishment Parties
ANDERSON: Well getting back to our top story, you are watching Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson. In Italy, there is uncertainty and fear of political deadlock after populist anti-establishment party swept the polls. Projections indicate that the populist or the right wing parties won over 50 percent of voters. Now a center-right coalition under former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi looks at to form the largest group in parliament on the other side of the world. The outgoing center left Democratic government picking up the pieces, and asking what went wrong? It is expected to lose around 170 seats. Politics in Italy never easy, often time messy. Let's get to the expertise in all for this, and it is important, not just for Italy, but for Euro pre as a whole, from someone whose been in the tip of Italian politics, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, joining us live from Milan. So you have been watching elections -- tens of elections in Italy over the past years, and watching the lead-up to this very, very closely. Just describe what you are seeing at present. How do you expect -- what do you expect the outcome to be and how do you expect that to have an influence on Italy?</s>MARIO MONTI, FORMER ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Well, certainly, this has been a very lively manifestation of Italian democracy to say the least. I often characterize this as 50 percent of Italians shifting to the right because actually, the highest party now in terms of votes is the Five Star Movement which is for sure populist, but very, very difficult to characterize as right or left. As a matter of fact, there were some clearly extreme right part just like CasaPound, they didn't arrive to one percent, for example. So having said that, there is a turmoil in the political landscape. There is clearly an emergence of two populist parties, the Five Star and the League, and there is a big defeat of the two more moderate parties around Mr. Berlusconi on the right Forza Italia and Mr. Renzi on the left, the Democratic Party. There would be two targets after this revolt in the ballots. One will be against the Italian establishment and I must say, this is not necessarily a bad news, because the Italian establishment of the economy, of politics has not been up to what is required of a modern establishment. So if the pressure is felt there, that is not better, but of course there will be pressure also on the European Union, and I think onto -- in two respects, one, some revolt against fiscal discipline and the other one on migrations. In a sense, surely becomes closer to the...</s>ANDERSON: Let me stop you there, sir. Because we have seen the rise of populist and far right movement across Europe, France, Germany, Latvia, Poland to names just a few and we have seen the U.K. vote for Brexit of course. And we have seen immigration as a key voting issue again and again, and again, is that ultimately what is fueling this populist fervor in Italy, and if so, isn't it Europe to blame for its inadequate response?</s>MONTI: There are two European policies which have pushed to this, and they master to some extent, be changed. One is Immigration indeed, because Italy was left very much alone due to its geographical position. It couldn't help but taking in so many immigrants but other countries, particularly Hungary, Slovakia, et cetera, have simply refused to implement a European agreement about the redeployment of the immigrant. So that fueled a lot of resentment of Europe. The other thing is more economic and is the budget constraints that the E.U. puts on all members of states, particularly of the Eurozone. There I must say that I am more on the side, and more on the side of the E.U. on this one, because Italy is a highly indebted countries which has come out another way from the financial crisis of the Eurozone. But we need for internal reasons. Not because of European constraints, to contain our deficit and try and reduce our stock of public debt.</s>ANDERSON: And they have actually dodged a bullet, didn't they, in the end? Because they were, you know, in quite some trouble, some years ago, and as you rightly point out, may have very much benefited from its membership of the European Union, to a degree that many people in Europe will say, perhaps it wasn't fair. In an interview recently, the former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon hailed Italy's political shift saying this, the Italian people have gone farther in a shorter period of time than the British did for Brexit, and the Americans did for Trump. And Steve Bannon somewhat reveling in the sort of outcome that he will now be seeing in Italy. I mean, I need to put this to you, does this election or will this election result in Italy pulling out of the Europe? Potentially pulling out of Europe as a whole all at what Britain is doing at the present?</s>MONTI: The existence if Italy in the -- and in the Euro will become more difficult, more thorny, and there will be more confrontations between Brussels and Rome. But luckily, the influence of Mr. Bannon in Italy is slightly above or slightly below the Euro, and I believe that Italians will not be taking Brexit or the election of President Trump as benchmarks. But simply, it is important that we continue to be an active partner in the U.S., especially now that Germany has finally set in motion, this new grand coalition. France has a strong pro-European president, there is a vacuum in Europe unless Italy takes on its own role there, but there will be lot of pedagogical work to be done vis-a-vis Italians, which was not done by Mr. Berlusconi or Mr. Renzi, even though self-proclaim themselves, (Inaudible) against populist, they were not really.</s>ANDERSON: And with that, we have spoken before and we will speak again and it is a pleasure having you on. Mario Monti, former Italian Prime Minister, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, on what is a big day in Italian politics.</s>MONTI: Thank you very much.</s>ANDERSON: Ahead on the show, the elephant in the room, the academy awards. Hollywood looks to blaze a path forward after months of sexual assault and harassment allegations. That is up next.