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Re: [atlarge-discuss] Democracies Re: [atlarge-discuss] Risks and digital certificates (was Re: [atlarge-discuss]Election Preparation)



On Mon, 28 Apr 2003 14:52:14 -0400, you wrote:

>Germany was an exception to what I said but it had actually
>been a democracy (of sorts) before Hitler de-democratized it,
>so the Allies were merely reversing a "regime change". The
>same is more-or-less true of Italy.

Italy has been a constitutional monarchy with elections since 1848
(that is, before Italy was even unified as a single nation). Of
course, initially vote was granted only to male high-class citizens
(less than 1% of the population) but it then was extended more and
more - universal vote to all adult males was finally given in 1913.
Even the fascists continued holding elections, though after 1924 the
only legal party was the fascist one and you were only allowed to vote
yes or no to fascism (you can guess what happened to the 1.7% who
voted no). Voting power was extended to women in 1946, when a general
poll decided whether Italy would have remained a constitutional
monarchy or turned into a republic - but this seemed more like a
natural consequence of the long-term democratisation process and of
the popular partisan war, than like a gift by the occupying armies.
-- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
-------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------

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