In the seven years that it has occupied the Quirinal Palace, it has been the image of balance and continuity in a country in continuous crisis
When Sergio Mattarella entered the royal box of the La Scala theater last Tuesday night, shortly before the performance of ‘Macbeth’ began with which the Milanese coliseum opened the operatic season, the 2,000 spectators received him standing up. and clapping for more than five minutes. It was the last public demonstration of recognition by the Italian population to which for the last seven years it has been the lifeline to which the country has clung every time one of its usual political crises has been unleashed. Despite the fact that some at La Scala asked him for an ‘encore’, urging him to continue as President of the Republic, this 80-year-old Sicilian does not seem willing to continue in the Quirinal Palace in Rome, seat of the Head of State, beyond February 3, when his term ends.
Italy has much to thank Mattarella, whose march produces vertigo both in national and international public opinion and in the Italian parties themselves, who will be in charge of finding him a successor. It is enough to remember how the politics of your country were found and how you leave them now. It was he who was in charge of guaranteeing Rome’s European fit during the Government of the 5-Star Movement (M5E) and the League (2018-2019), two parties that then flirted with anti-Europeanism and even with removing Italy from the euro, causing sling concern in the rest of the Old Continent. Today their positions have completely changed and both political forces are part of the very broad coalition that supports the Executive of Mario Draghi, “the most pro-European in Italian history”, as the columnist of the newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’ Aldo Cazzullo writes.
Draghi is precisely one of the favorites to succeed Mattarella, although more and more voices are betting on his continuity as prime minister to end the legislature without further shocks, which ends in 2023 if there is no electoral advance. “It remains to be seen what he wants to do, but his role as leader of the government of national unity is perceived as essential both in Italy and in Europe,” says Marco Almagisti, professor of political science at the University of Padua. International investors are shown in the same vein. A recent report by the investment bank Goldman Sachs considers it “more likely” that Draghi will continue as prime minister to guarantee a “political continuity” that allows to take advantage of European aid after the pandemic and to remove the risk of early elections, which would increase the perception of risk on Italy.
THE KEYS:
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Leader of Forza Italia.
Someone who does not hide his illusion to end his political career in this position is Silvio Berlusconi -
I turn from progressivism.
Influential former prime minister Renzi could support a conservative
“If finally Draghi chooses to remain in the Executive branch, it would clear the way for another candidate to end up reaching the presidency of the Republic,” recalls Almagisti. There are many names that are being considered as a possible successor to Mattarella. Someone who does not hide his illusion to finish his political career in the Quirinal is Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Forza Italia and four times prime minister. However, it seems difficult that both the M5E and the Democratic Party (PD, center-left) are going to swallow with what, for years, has been their staunch enemy.
Possible candidates who would arouse less antipathy also stand out in the pools, such as Pierferdinando Casini, who went from being an ally of Berlusconi and a militant Christian Democrat to being elected senator in the ranks of the PD. Marta Cartabia, current Minister of Justice and former President of the Constitutional Court, also seems to have possibilities. If she were chosen, she would be the first woman to become president of the Republic.
Great fragmentation
The vote to designate the next head of state could be held in Parliament between January 18 and 28. 1,009 voters will participate in it, including deputies, senators and regional representatives and it will take two-thirds of the assembly to reach a quorum in the first three votes. After the fourth, an absolute majority is sufficient.
The great political fragmentation explains the contacts of these weeks between the parties, even those that are in ideological antipodes, to test for who the new president could be. In the election will have a determining weight the 111 parliamentarians from the mixed groups of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, who are not attached to any of the major parties. In this game of balances, Matteo Renzi, former prime minister and leader of Italia Viva, a splinter formation of the PD, can once again be the protagonist. Renzi has given signs that he would not mind betraying the progressive bloc and using the 43 parliamentarians of his political creature to elect a conservative president.
First strike against Draghi
While Sergio Mattarella will go to the Vatican to say goodbye to Pope Francis next Thursday, the members of two of the main Italian unions, the Cgil and the Uil, will march through the streets of Rome in the demonstration organized on the occasion of the general strike called against the Government of Mario Draghi. Ten months after becoming prime minister, Draghi faces his first major protest, specifically against next year’s Budgets. According to the trade union centrals, the public accounts for 2022 forget about retirees and students, they do not make the right fiscal adjustments, nor will they prevent the trickle of industrial relocations from continuing.
The announcement of the strike has caused a division of opinions among the parties that are part of the coalition that supports the Executive: while the left advocates reopening the dialogue with the unions, the conservative forces demand that the protest be called off.
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