Italians set to vote in high-stakes referendum on constitutional change

If long-standing supporters of Italy's Democratic Party are half as angry at their leader as Ermanno Gizzi, the tenure of the once-promising Prime Minister Matteo Renzi may come to an unceremonious end early next week.

It may also putthe future of Italy, the European economyand Renzi himselfat risk of downward spiral.

Gizzi, 56, is among what recent polls show to be a majority of Italians planning to vote "No" inthis Sunday'snational referendum on constitutional change. The vote will reduce the power of Italy's Senate, streamline the legislative process and give more power to the party that wins a majority.

The 41-year-oldRenzihas pledged to resign should he lose a possibility that has prompted dire warnings from business leaders and banking expertsworried about the instability that could be triggered by a major change in government.

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Italy has some of the weakest banks in theeurozone, with more than $500 billion in bad debt.Renzidevised a bailout plan, which may crumble, should he resign, along with the country's banks.

'No consultation'

Yet the very people Renzi might have once called upon for support are now using the referendum to lash out at a leader they see as increasingly autocratic.

"There was no consultation on these reforms with the people, with civic organizations, not even an email," says Gizzi, a high school teacher in Rome who says he's concerned about removing checks and balances of Italy's constitution. "They made no attempt to even try to explain how the changes will improve our lives."

Teachers such as Gizzi were once a solidly dependable Democratic bloc.But he and many others say the wildly unpopular school reforms that Renzi pushed through last year was just one act in an arrogant political show with no regard for its audience.

Renzi became prime minister almost three years ago not through election, but by being named head of Italy's grand coalition government after a series of other short-term leaders.

Among core members of the Democratic Party, Renzi is viewed as a fox in the henhouse a pragmatic centrist similar to Silvio Berlusconi and one who hasmanaged to hijack Italy's traditional left.

Italians, though, were at first happy to giveRenzia chance, encouraged by his youthful energy and vows to modernize the country and boost the economy after almost two decades of stagnation, with unemployment hovering at 12 per cent.

Anti-establishment sentiment grows

But many of his early supporters are now disillusioned, put off by what they perceive as a disdain for Italy's long tradition of governing by wide consensus.

Just like those who voted for Brexit or Donald Trump, many who plan to vote No inSunday'selection feel a deep sense of betrayal by traditional politicians.

In Italy, those people encompass a wide, disparate group from discontented Democrats, to neo-Fascist and Catholic groups,to the country's insurgent parties,the populist Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant Lega Nord.

Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega Nord, and Beppe Grillo, the bombastic comedian who heads the Five Star movement, have served up inflammatory speeches at rallies that match Trump's hostility while outshining him in linguistic dexterity.

Grillo has called Renzi "a scared shitless wounded sow" and depicted the Democratic Party as "dedicated to cyber-masturbation" with the flood of Vote Yes emails they've sent out in recent weeks. This week, Salvini dubbed the banks, ratings agencies, industry leaders and celebrities who have warned a No vote would be cataclysmic for Italy as a bunch of "vultures and jackals."

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"What's at stake for Italy and Europe are months of instability," says Giovanni Orsina, deputy director of the School of Government at Rome's Luiss University.

Italy is used to it, he says. In the past seven decades, the country has had more than 60 governments in part the result of a constitution that, in the wake of Fascism, has protected Italy from the dominance of any one party at the expense of giving elected leaders enough power to properly govern.

Or in the case of Renzi, the power to pass reforms.

Europe on shaky ground?

But it is Europe's instability that worries Orsina more.

France,Germanyand the Netherlands are all holding national elections in the coming year. With Renzi's promise to resign should he losetomorrow, Orsina says the lack of continuity could put Europe, already divided over the migrant crisis and jolted by Brexit, on shakier ground.

"If the Yes vote wins in Italy, we are going to have a relatively stable government, so that will mean not everything will be in flux in Europe," says Orsina. "If the No wins, that's another country in doubt and uncertainty."

It's a view some Yes voters share, if reluctantly.

"The reform is not perfect and not precise enough in parts, but I think it's a great mistake to make this referendum only about Renzi," says 19-year-old Raffaelle Colletti, a political science student. "The constitution has not been modified sinceafter the [Second World] Warand it needs an update. We need to say yes to something in this country."

Like Colletti, many worrya No victory will only strengthen the Five Starprotestmovement.During Italy's last election in 2013, it won votes from across the political spectrum, securing more than 100 parliamentary seats.Currently neck-in-neck in the polls with the Democratic Party,it has good chance of winning the next election.

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Yet after witnessing the political stumbling of a neophyte Five Star administration in Rome, with garbage piling up and public transit in shambles, Colletti says the Democratic Party is the lesser of two evils.

Gizzi disagrees.

"Sure, I'm afraid of these populist movements like the Lega Nord and the Five Star. But I'm more afraid that with Renzi's reforms, we'll no longer have a real democracy in this country."