To vote or not to vote?

It’s that time again of a long series of doubts, questions and lack of information. No, I’m not talking about the elections in Cardiff!! I’m referring to the Italian elections being held on the 13th of April. Voting by post, I only have time until the 7th apparently.
I haven’t thought much about it, I haven’t checked the political parties’ websites and know very little about the candidates. It feels very odd given that I’m someone who has no such doubts when it comes to politics in the UK.
Since the last elections, the Italian Parliament has MPs representing Italians living abroad. I don’t know the numbers of those eligible to vote but there are millions of Italians living across the globe!! How can these MPs actually do something for us except the odd law about Italian schools abroad and so on?
I don’t think it was the right thing to do. They should have created an elected representative post for each embassy instead. I would have very much liked someone representing my needs and interests as an Italian citizen in the UK. For example, I’d like someone campaigning for more support for Italian Cultural Institutes (the London and Edinburgh ones are great!) and so on.
Above everything else I’d like someone who keeps in touch and the current Italian MPs currently representing me have sent me no communications until now.
It is possible to choose one candidate among the list presented by each party writing his/her name on the ballot paper. The parties have, of course, chosen their ‘star’ candidate so I have no information on the others. The manifestos are all the same and terribly non-controversial that it’s impossible to make an informed choice. I don’t know what they stand for (aside from the usual stuff for residents abroad such as consulates, culture etc.). None of them have told me what they have been doing and none of them seem to have done any campaign outside Parliament.
So I’m contacting them! So far, I have written to Gianni Farina (PD) and Guglielmo Picchi (Polo delle Liberta’) and asked their view and their party’s view on the refuse problem in Naples and the Alitalia privatisation.
I’m just one vote out of hundreds of thousand, but it counts!
The irony is that even my home town council keeps in touch with me sending their regular magazine (which includes a short article from each party on the Council). They are also more effective: I can change my address online, request to renew my ID card online … local government does it better!!