Ok, I suppose hardly anyone here is interested, but maybe one or two people care about what happens around the globe, so here's a breakdown of Italy's political mess(worse than usual).
We had elections in march but due to a terrible electoral law passed last year the parliament is hung, and we've pretty much been left to anarchy the past 2 months.
To give you a better understanding I'll list you the 6 parties that managed to gain seats in the parliament/senate.
Democratic Party (PD)
Born from the shambles of the old Christian Democrats that ruled Italy for about 40 years and the socialist party, PD is centre-left. Very centre, little left(pun intended). They've also been in power the last cycle(2013-2018 with Letta, Renzi and Gentiloni), slowly and cautiously sailing the country out of the recession. We've gotten better compared to the 2008-2012 period, but not enough to make people happy. It's the party of turtle-like advancement, safe but hella slow. They have the closest ties to the strongest EU governments, but are ultimately uninspiring and dropped really bad in last elections going from the 40% of 2013 to only 18%~.
Right-wing coalition
This one is comprised of three parties as of now:
Lega
Used to be North League, a party of "racists"(towards italians of the south)that badly pushed for the northern part of Italy to secede, they used to be a niche political force but ever since Salvini took hold of the party they dropped the North from the name and tried to establish themselves as a national party. They are still strongly xenophobic(Salvini famously and non jokingly said we should steamroll gypsies with caterpillars), strongly anti-EU, pro-Putin, pushing for an unsustainable 15% flat tax and decrease of retirement age. They grew strongly in the past couple of years and attested themselves at 17%~ last elections.
Forza Italia (FI)
The party that Berlusconi founded in the early 90s. Supposed to be the more moderate of the right-wing parties, it still offers the same platform as 20 years ago. They're the ones who devised the flat tax idea(though they said 20%, which is still too low for our state), but they are more friendly to the EU, eager to form coalitions with anyone, and generally not credible, especially cause Berlusconi is still there. They got 16%~ last elections.
Brothers of Italy (FdI)
Fascists in (poor)disguise. They got about 4%~.
Free and Equal (LeU)
What is left of the socialists in Italy. They do a very poor job at representing people with socialist values as they are unorganized, lack ideas, cohesion and most notably a charismatic and credible leader. They've been a complete disaster so far and in fact barely got into parliament with only about 3%~ of the votes.
5 Star Movement (M5S)
Anti-establishment, pro-environment, pushing for a time-limited unemployment income(which they dishonestly advertise as universal income)...and that's it. They were born from political satirist Grillo as a protest movement against the establishment, they've been the main responsibles for the spread of fake news in Italy the past few years(conspiracy theories of many kinds and, the one that angered me the most the anti-vax agenda). They've grown rapidly over the past few years riding people's anger and disappointement with the financial crisis, but the truth is they offer no solutions to anything, they're only good at protesting(or rather insulting as that's the most they've done in these years). Their current leader Di Maio(poorly educated 30 year old who's never worked in his life)is known for contradicting himself at every interview and would basically say anything to obtain consensus. They're currently the strongest single party in Italy as they obtained 32%~ of the votes last election, though mostly in the south as our regions are very poor and the (mistaken)promise of universal income attracted a lot of voters.
Post-elections: what now?
The way our electoral law works is a bit convuluted, but to put it into simple terms there needs to be a majority of at least 40% in the two chambers in order to form a stable government. This means nobody won(despite the claims of both M5S and the right-wing coalition).
President Mattarella made many attempts with the various parties asking if they were able to form any alliance and make something out of this mess. Nothing happened for 2 months, then suddenly Lega and M5S got together to try to make it amongst them.
After a couple of weeks the result was an insane mess of a program that included the main points of both parties - something so unsustainable and unrealistic for our coffers that is said it would cause a hole of about 150 billions optimistically. But the point of main contention came when they proposed some old man called Savona as minister of economy and fincances: this guy's plan for our economy is to basically either leave the €, or to drag the entire eurozone into default so that "the currency can be renegotiated from scratch". Genius.
Mattarella perplexed at all this and very worried about our already crippled economy said no. He's only letting them get into power if they suggest a more reasonable ecnonomy minister.
Di Maio and Salvini got angry, claimed that Italy is a slave to Eurobrureaucrats(on this topic german EU politician Oettinger didn't help as he ominously said "markets will teach italians how to vote"). Di Maio even went as far as attacking the President, calling for an impeachment(which is unreasonable as Mattarella could refuse the minister as per the Constitution), but more worringly went into squares rallying people against the President and calling for a march on Rome(why hello fascism).
Now we are at an impasse, with probable new elections in september. It's hard to understand what will happen, in terms of consensus Lega keeps growing(polls say it's over 25% now), but FI is tanking so the coalition may or may not reach the 40% barrier. On the other side M5S are losing some steam, but remain strong. Some suggest Lega and M5S might run together to propose the same thing again, which begs the question...what's the point?
tldr: Italy is in an even more chaotic situation than usual, our economy is getting ravaged even more by market speculation(Spread over 250% lol), and our hopes for the future rely on insane economic policies. It makes you wonder if it isn't best to just abandon ship while still possible.