(“We have a new Pope but no government”)

I GUESS it was bound to happen sooner or later.  The magical novelty of electing a new Pope while the other one who is our friend and brother is still alive is beginning to wane.  Regardless, the mystery and splendour of the Vatican are still intact.

Already, reality is extorting a harsh penalty.  While the pomp and pageantry of electing a new Pope were in full swing, Italy where the Vatican is located was struggling to cope with a dose of what Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe described so elegantly as “Things Fall Apart”.

The President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano is in a desperate search for a new Prime Minister but there is none in sight.  There is no government!!

How tragic.  More and more Italians are openly jubilating over their good fortune!! No government is a wonderful bonus!!  All they got from the last government were harsh austerity and economic woes.  In their slipstream, according to a report aired at prime time on CNN (anchored by John Wedeman) suicide has become a cruel national report.

Here is the chilling report:        “MIRRED IN FINANCIAL TROUBLES,

ITALIAN COUPLE COMMITS SUICIDE”

He was a clerk at a shoe company, though he had not worked for some time.  She was a retired artisan.  Together, they had no more than 500 euro a month, from her pension, to live on.

On Friday, they were dead.

In Italy, a country in deep economic malaise and political disarray, there is no shortage of people struggling nowadays.  Even so, the suicides of Romeo Dionisi, 62, and Anna Maria Sopranzi, 68, struck a nerve – triggering an outpouring of disbelief and sorrow not only in their seaside eastern Italian community, but around the nation.

Adding to the shock, Sopranzi’s brother threw himself into the Adriatic Sea soon after the news broke about his sister.

“The tragedy of Civitanova Marche leaves me shocked and speechless,” said Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party that narrowly won the most votes in February’s election. “We all have to convince ourselves that out of the spotlight, there is a real and dramatic social emergency.”

Dionisi and Sopranzi lived in an apartment in the same building as Ivo Costamagna, the president of Civitanova Marche’s municipal council, and he had come to know them well over the decades.

“They were people with great dignity,” Costamagna told CNN in a phone interview.

He has no doubt that they took their own lives because of their economic difficulties.

Both Romeo and his brother-in-law worked in the town’s construction and footwear industries, Costamagna said.

These sectors, he said, have been badly hit by the crisis.  In Civitanova Marche, a traditionally wealthy town, the economic crunch has had a tremendous psychological impact.

“People like Romeo would not accept charity, or social service aid,”  Costamagna said, “Romeo just wanted a job.”

Their garage door open, the couple had left a note asking forgiveness and directing people to a room in the back of their building.  That is where they were found, having hung themselves.

“They could not even pay the rent,” neighbours said.  Italian Police told reporters there was “no doubt Dionisi and Sopranzi committed suicide out of desperation”.

While their act appeared to be premeditated, the apparent suicide of Sopranzi’s brother, Giuseppe, seems to have been an impulse driven by his grief.

The funerals are due to take place on Saturday afternoon.  Laura Boldrini, the speaker of Italy’s lower house of parliament, is attending privately.

Saddled with debt

As Italy’s economy continues to stagger, suicide rates have increased in recent years, according to the state news agency.

“The nation is in its longest recession in 20 years.  Its economy is Europe’s third-largest, saddled with a government debt the Treasury Ministry puts at $2.6 trillion.  It shrank by 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012,  Euro barometer says.

Efforts to corral Italy’s government debt through cutbacks have taken a toll. Dionisi, for instance, was among the thousands of esodati  or “exiled ones”  who had been left without a pension after the Italian government raised the retirement age 16 months ago.

“When Romeo lost his job (in a building firm) he had only one or two more years of private contribution to pay before he could receive the pension,” Costamagna said.

“With the pension system reform, he suddenly had five more years of contribution to pay and he lost his serenity.  Moreover, according to the new rules it is very difficult to pay your contributions if you don’t have a proper work and with the crisis, no one can afford to hire a worker with a proper contract.

“It is a kind of pincer in which Romeo got trapped.”

Political instability in the south European country has compounded the economic woes.  Bersani has been unable to form a coalition government, leaving Italy in a limbo that prompted international ratings agency Fitch to downgrade its credit rating from A- to BBB+.

The suicides of Friday echoed the price this malaise has taken on Italian citizens.  Boldrini said on her website that the married couple’s deaths illustrate “the despair of many, due to the shame of poverty.”

The deaths struck closest to home in Civitanova Mache.  Mayor Tommaso Claudio Covatta declared Saturday a day of mourning for the three apparent suicide victims, saying on his website their deaths are impacting “the community in a time of particular economic and social difficulties”.

Bashorun  Randle wrote from Lagos.