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Italian politics is notorious for being corrupt and ineffective - and yet turnout in tomorrow's election will almost certainly put British voters to shame. Why? Essay by Tobias Jones

Courtesy The Guardian Tomorrow the curtain comes down on what I consider the strangest show on earth: an Italian general election. If you're thinking that a bunch of dull politicians with their fragile promises can't be much of a pageant, think again. The great thing about an Italian election is that - unusually for such an occasion - politics hardly comes into it.

When voters enter the ballot box tomorrow they can look back on one of the most entertaining spettacoli of recent times: Silvio Berlusconi set the tone by surprising voters with the promise to give up sex for the entirety of the campaign; his minister for health resigned after he was accused of hiring private investigators to spy on political rivals; a showgirl, Mara Carfagna, decided to run as a candidate in Campania; tens of thousands of people have paraded through piazzas with sandwich-boards saying "I'm a pillock" (don't ask); the owners of Milan and Fiorentina football teams had a public slanging match; Berlusconi said communists used to boil babies; the Chinese embassy protested that no, they've never boiled bambini. It's been a fun few weeks.

Such theatricality requires a complex stage design. There are 174 officially registered symbols in this election.

As with the country's Catholicism, the proselytising is pictorial: the whole appearance of the country has changed as flags, banners and posters remind voters of the parties' symbols - a flame, a rainbow, a dove, a shield, an olive. That astonishing number of symbols is part of the reason why political debate is so rare.

Much of the electoral discussion in the last few months has been about coalitions. The central element of debate is partitica, not politica: it's about party politics. Newspaper scoops make parliament sound like a school playground - it's all about who are now best friends or suddenly sworn enemies.

There are many consequences. For one, the average ballot paper is what they call a scheda-lenzuolo, the size of a bed sheet.

And if it's complicated being a political journalist in Italy, imagine what it's like for a leader trying to control his backbenchers - there are 33 parties represented in Romano Prodi's coalition, 35 in that of Berlusconi. When you look at all those political logos, something interesting emerges. Pride of place is given not to the party but the leader.

Posters say "vote UDC" or "vote AN" but much more prominently they urge "vote Casini" or "vote Fini" . Unlike Britain, the politicians are all older and more established than their parties.

Of all the major parties, only the Partito Radicale was founded before the 1990s. Parties change so often that the figurehead is more important than the party itself.

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