Palermo feels pinch ahead of polls

By Stephanie Holmes
BBC News, Palermo

Italians are getting into debt just to buy food, say consumer experts

La dolce vita? Daily life for many in Sicily has a distinctly bitter aftertaste.

As Italians prepare to vote in a general election, after Romano Prodi's fragile centre-left coalition came tumbling down just 20 months into office, the main issue for voters in the south of the country is the difficulty of making ends meet.

On the wide avenues of the Sicilian capital, scooters speed past shopwindows displaying carefully-lit designer clothes and even those on foot do not stop and stare.

"I've really felt the difference these last two years," says Michela Camarani, a 31-year-old flight attendant. "You have to be so careful about where your money goes."

As well as the knock-on effect of global grain and oil price rises, Sicilians are struggling with some of the eurozone's lowest wages.

The average Italian employee takes home around 1,200 euros (£958) a month and consumers' associations say that prices of some foodstuffs have gone up by 15% over the last year.

Daily bread

"But wages haven't gone up at all, that's why families are drowning," explains Lillo Vizzini, of consumers' association FederConsumatori.

You tell me how I'm supposed to make it to the end of the month with all the bills? Carmela Mirano Italian voters' thirst for change

"People are getting into debt just to buy food. Families are now using high-interest rate credit cards, which they once used to use just to buy big-ticket items like TVs, to do their weekly supermarket shop."

"Purchasing power has been halved and salaries have barely been raised. Take pasta, for example - an Italian staple. The price of a packet has gone up from around one euro (£0.79) in 2007 to as high as 1.65 euros (£1.31) in 2008."

In the zigzag of narrow, crumbling streets off Piazza San Domenico sits the Vucciria market, where some of the city's best-fed cats tuck happily into crates of fish off-cuts, oblivious to stallholders' shouts around them.

Carmela Mirano, a 65-year-old pensioner, is eyeing the trays of olives.

Empty promises

She looks at me for a moment when I ask her if she is feeling the pinch.

"I get 1,000 euros (£790) a month as my pension and I have to pay 560 euros (£450) for my home," she tells me.

"You tell me how I'm supposed to make it to the end of the month with all the bills?"

She doesn't think she will go and vote on Sunday.

Her financial frustration is fuelling a mistrust of politicians' empty promises.

Mr Berlusconi believes an economic revival will trickle down to low earners

But it has also spawned yet another miniscule political party on Italy's already crowded stage - the Pensioners' Party.

Both the major political players, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), led by Walter Veltroni, and media mogul-turned-politician Silvio Berlusconi's newly labelled People of Liberty (PDL) alliance, agree that the spiralling cost of living is a major issue.

Mr Berlusconi's campaign posters claim the centre-left administration has forced the country to its knees, exhorting Italy to "Get back up again". "It's a good job we've got Silvio," another reads.

Mr Veltroni's colleagues, meanwhile, repeat the miracle of the successes they have achieved in such a short space of time, having inherited the empty coffers that Mr Berlusconi left behind him.

But naturally they do not agree on how to deal with the problem, with Mr Berlusconi convinced that re-energising the whole Italian economy will have a trickle-down effect and Mr Veltroni pledging to raise the lowest pensions and introduce a minimum wage.

Precariousness

Faced with a series of short-term contracts and no prospect of leaving the family home until they hit their mid-30's, it is Palermo's young people who are particularly affected by the high cost of living.

Rather than trying to change things through politics, many have already packed their bags.

Here, and in the rest of southern Italy, the phenomenon they call "precariousness" is leading to 100,000 young people moving north and beyond each year, local politicians say.

First and foremost we need to develop Sicily. It has so many resources - cultural, historical, artistic, agricultural Gaspare Nuccio PD party chief

Alessandro, a 31-year-old freelance graphic designer, has watched both of his brothers leave Sicily.

"Here, it was difficult for them to do anything but in France they've opened a hotel with a restaurant, and they've just added a club too.

"Sicilians have good brains and creativity too but here you have to ask for permission from the right person to do everything. Politicians only give work to their friends."

Listening to him, Matilde Incorpora, a 54-year-old former architect who now runs a cultural association and artistic space for emerging artists, nods.

"Even if leaving a place like this breaks your heart, all the best ones flee. No-one offers them anything here. Soon, the only people left on this island will be Mafiosi and old people."

But from his office above a leafy square in the centre of the Sicilian capital, the president of the city's centre-left PD party paints a far from gloomy picture of Sicily's potential.

'Rage'

"First and foremost we need to develop Sicily. It has so many resources - cultural, historical, artistic, agricultural," says Gaspare Nuccio.

"We need to break this system of clientelism. We need to invest in innovation and infrastructure.

"We could for example, really develop renewable energy here - we have constant sunshine and it's free. That would provide employment at several levels. Or high-end tourism, organic agriculture."

Unlike the older generation, who have lost hope in politicians' ability to effect change, Alessandro will be voting on Sunday.

"I do have this sense of rage," he says. "We really want to change things but without asking for any help from the system.

"Of course we'll vote, we know perfectly well that not voting is playing into the hands of the people already in power."