Italy's general election was all the way back on March 4th, but they still don't have a government.
A coalition of two new parties - the Five Star Movement and La Lega, who between them got 55% of the vote, was vetoed by the Italian President who said it might "upset the markets".
Never mind that democracy is rule of the citizens not rule of the markets.
As it happens, by vetoing the democratically elected govt and appointing an unelected ex-IMF official to be the Prime Minister, the Italian President destabalised the markets more than the coalition govt would have.
That's because it has brought to head whether democracy is compatible with the euro. Will Europe abandon democracy because it clashes with what self-styled elites want, and if they do, will they be able to cope with the massive backlash?
The markets are judging that no, the European elites won't be able to cope with the backlash, and they are pulling their money out of Italy. Europe has yet to understand that elites never win battles with motivated citizens. You'd think they would have got it by now, given the outcome of the French Revolution, the Russian revolution, the fall of the dictators in Spain and Portugal and the fall of the communists when their people had had enough.
It's crazy that the European Union is provoking these types of confrontations with voters.