AT SIX o’clock on a Sunday evening, Ettore Rosato is addressing an audience of fewer than 100 people in Seregno, a picturesque commuter town north of Milan. His brief: to persuade them to back the government’s constitutional reform in a referendum eight weeks hence. Earlier that day Mr Rosato, who leads the governing Democratic Party (PD) in the Chamber of Deputies, was in Switzerland canvassing expatriate voters; the day before, in Sardinia. He will not stop zigzagging through Italy until the vote is held on December 4th.
That his party should deploy a politician of Mr Rosato’s stature to a place like Seregno (population: 45,000) attests to the fear that has seized the PD as poll after poll finds majorities ready to reject the reform. Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, has said he will resign if he loses. That has turned the referendum into a personal vote of confidence, at a time when his popularity is waning and the economy slowing.
The gamble is understandable. Mr Renzi and his advisers are convinced Italy’s woes are institutional, that under the current system structural reforms will be thwarted by vested interests, and that only a…