Of Mario Bozzi Trails

Source: Mario Bozzi Trails
In the lexicon of the electoral campaign 2018 let's try to "synthesize", this time, the word "betrayal". The term often comes up in interviews with various party leaders , a sign that the issue is on the surface.
What does “betray” mean ? How much and how one betrays oneself ? And who truly betrays their country or community ? These are some of the questions that Avishai Margalit asks, in his latest essay “On Betrayal” (Einaudi).
The concept of what it means to betray is constant across centuries and cultures. Betrayal undermines the most solid trust, it dissolves the glue that holds our strongest relationships together, questioning ethics: of what we owe to the people and groups who provide us with a sense of belonging.
To come to the Italian case, in a time in which politics seems to be characterized by a low tension of values, talking about "traitors" and "betrayals" then offers the opportunity, beyond any moralism, for a non-trivial reconsideration on the issues of political identity, of representation, of the relationship between elected officials and voters, going to the heart of our democratic system, not surprisingly in a strong crisis.
Dice l’art. 67 of the Italian Constitution: “Each member of Parliament represents the Nation and exercises his functions without mandate”. That is, it establishes that elected parliamentarians are free to exercise their functions without being obliged to vote as the party with which they were elected tells them to. Everything normal, in the name of the desired autonomy of the elected representatives ? On the contrary.
The result, data in hand, is that, from the beginning of the legislature, according to an Open Polis study, they were 566 group changes, completed by 347 parliamentarian, il 35,53% of the elect. Montecitorio scored 313 group changes, con 207 deputies involved, il 32,86 of the total. In the Senate, however, there were changes 253, con 140 defective senators (il 43,57%).
Faced with this constant shifting of the front, how the individual citizen-voter should react ? Stick to the constitutional text, in the name of the freedom of the elected, thus undergoing the "change of shirt" (the "betrayal" of the electoral pact) or ask for respect for one's political will, with the consequent resignation of the parliamentarian ?
The question is evidently political and metapolitical at the same time. To return to Avishai Margalit with the betrayal the betrayed person deduces that he is not important in the eyes of the traitor, despite the certainty of having been so for a long time, despite the "sense of belonging" that characterizes it, precisely, every strong relationship. When you cheat, regardless of the type of betrayal, shared history and memory are erased, we appear indifferent to the other, common belonging is called into question.
This is the crux of the Italian question: the indifference of the parliamentary system towards the "other" (the citizen voter and his choices), the elimination of shared stories (and election programs), the annulment of any common membership (the political visions and values ​​that should support them). It is the current sense of a "system crisis" that, also through a top-down electoral law, it has in fact distorted any correct relationship between elected officials and voters, allowing the former to be free to "betray" every constraint and leaving the latter without any control-intervention tool. In summary: the party is over (electoral) fooled the saint (voter), with the results clearly evident to all, naturally in the name of parliamentary democracy.