Italy Pins Stability Hopes on Medfly

Rome, Italy, January 31, 2018 -- A spokesman pro tem for interim Prime Minister Mario Piccolo announced today that a long-term effort to modify the Constitution of Italy to improve political stability has at last been approved by outgoing members of the temporary Parliament.

Forza Italia candidate Giovanni Lupitini

The change, which stipulates that Mediterranean fruit flies, rather than human beings, will henceforth be the only species permitted to hold the top post within the Italian government, is expected to bring a welcome sense of stability to the tumultuous Italian political scene.

The decision follows many decades of political chaos and disarray. The nine days prior to the announcement, which was welcomed by politicians, pundits and the populace alike, saw Italy's government change hands a record 339 times, or about once every 38 minutes.

“The Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, is just what we need to give the citizens of Italy the solid political foundation they so urgently need,” Luciano Illumo, ex-spokesman for newly-elected outgoing Prime Minister Bertolino Bartolomo, said.

Traditional Mediterranean fruit flies, which have an average life span of 22 days and a brain that weighs less than 0.003 grams, would in many cases be considered unfit to run the Italian government, according to Gerardo Deparduno, entomology professor at the Universita di Garbagio in Naples. However, “the fruit fly populations from which Prime Minister candidates will be selected are custom-bred and highly specialized,” he said.

Using recombinant DNA techniques and selective breeding, scientists at the respected Instituto di Insecto Irritado in Paloma have created a species that “hatches from the egg already possessing all the qualities needed by an Italian Prime Minister, except that they're a little hard to see,” Dr. Giacomo Verdi, a molecular biologist who led the fruit fly genetics team, said. “They can buzz from place to place, make speeches, approve laws, process payoffs, appoint judges, alienate unions, the works. Wear a tiny tailored suit. Aside from that skill set, they look and behave exactly like regular fruit flies, except that they're sterilized to prevent nepotism. Crazy about bananas.”

According to Dr. Verdi, the fruit fly populations have been diversified into multiple subspecies, each with an instinctive set of opinions, attitudes, loyalties and platform planks pre-tuned for a particular political affiliation. “After a one-day election campaign and a 60-minute election, a freshly-hatched candidate can get right to work,” he said.

“Given that the little flies have a fixed life span, each new Prime Minister will be elected for life,” Bresano Gnocci, correspondent for Milan's Tutti Frutti, a political daily, said. “That's a major advantage. They've stripped the constitution of any provision for no-confidence votes, impeachment, military coups, resignation, and so forth. Italy thus gets guaranteed stability three long, glorious weeks at a time, and if it turns out that particular bug was a bad choice, the population only has to wait a little while for the next one to buzz along.”

“This is exactly the kind of move the business community has been screaming for,” Enzo Serrano, owner of Italy's largest container ship operation, said. “We'll finally know where we stand with some kind of predictability from day to day, or morning to afternoon, and that inspires business confidence. Plus, since every elected PM will be programmed to drop dead at the end of his three-week term, you won't have the problem of corrupt, destabilizing insects lurking in the wings drooling for a chance to get reelected, like Silvio Berlusconi back in 2008. They'll simply be dead.”

Stocks on Italy's MIBTel index rose over 9% on the announcement.

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor