As Malta prepares to embark upon its 11th Parliament since 1964, Italian voters will, tomorrow and on Monday evening, elect their 62nd government since the end of the war, an average of nearly one government a year since 1945.
The simple truth is that this extraordinary country, which gave the Renaissance and Baroque to the world, threw in Dante and Petrach, enriched western civilisation as no other country on the continent has done and housed the centre of Christendom for 2,000 years, has a capacity for genius that somehow allows it, for all the "ifs" and "buts" of its politics, to function well enough to be one of the richest democracies in the world. It has, for all that, had some close shaves.
Somehow, it is incapable of governing itself a l'anglaise, not least, of course, because of the system of fragmented representation it has cobbled together since the end of World War II. It is as if its inter-wars fascist experience of government has persuaded leaders and those led that fragmentation, for all its disadvantages, is infinitely to be preferred to monolithic government. And, its admirers remark, why should it adopt an English system of government with a democratically-dubious first-past-the-post election to Parliament?
Why indeed? For all the apparent shakiness of the system, the country does well enough. Parliament after Parliament, and there have been more than three-score of them, is elected and thereafter soon thrown out - by Parliament - only to reconvene for a span of a year or so, promising reforms that are rarely carried out in full; and yet, it works.
It is the Italian way of doing things. Still, there are voices within that are questioning all this, demanding reforms that... remain in the future.
The manifesto of Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom centre-right alliance declares, somewhat modestly, that "We don't do, or promise, miracles". It doesn't have to; they seem to happen on their own.
Mr Berlusconi is no stranger to power, nor, indeed, to controversy. Almost seven years ago to the day, The Economist newspaper ran a leader in which it stated quite flatly that "Mr Berlusconi is not fit to lead the government of any country, least of all one of the richest democracies".
It also ran a hard-hitting article in which it levelled very serious accusations at him and for which it was taken to court, where no decision seems to have been taken on the matter.
He has already been leader of the country on three occasions and is on course for leading it a fourth time when the counting stops on Monday night. His main opponent, Walter Veltroni, leader of the centre-left coalition, must be hoping that this will not be the case but he seems to be up against a man, now in his 72nd year, whose second name seems to be resilience.
Both the main parties are being far more circumspect than they have been in the past about how they hope to see Italy through a recessionary period. Both leaders say they will cut taxes. For his part, Mr Berlusconi has promised to do away with property and inheritance tax, which will find resonance with the rich and the middle class; and to build a bridge that will join Sicily to Italy. He is also incandescent about losing the country's national carrier Alitalia to France and seems to be saying that this will happen over his dead body.
Mr Veltroni, on the other hand, has "promised" higher welfare spending. In the context of lower taxes, it remains a mystery as to how this spending, by both sides, will be funded.
The truth of the matter is that the Italian economy is ripe for spending cuts of some magnitude. This is not a matter of choice but a dire necessity. Any meaningful spending cuts will obviously lead to job losses and, inevitably, confrontation with the unions. Italy has been here before. Will its genius see it through this time?