New faces old hands
Cécile Kyenge Kashetu hadn't even been sworn in when a leading figure in the Northern League was promising that she would face the party's "total opposition". That's all right then. A vote of confidence from Italy's xenophobic, racist northern separatist party would have been worrying indeed for the new Minister of Integration.
Most Italians were more likely to greet the appointment of Kyenge, a 49-year-old doctor born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a resounding, "Who?" Although she has been active in immigration policy for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in Emilia Romagna, she has not been a national figure until now. The same can be said for a number of ministers in Prime Minister-designate Enrico Letta's new grand coalition government. Letta clearly felt the need to respond to the widespread call for a generational change in Italy's political leaders. Several of the new ministers who were sworn in on Sunday morning were elected to parliament for the first time in February.
The average age of the cabinet is 53, and the youngest at 37 is the new Minister for Agriculture, Nunzia De Girolamo of Berlusconi's centre-right Freedom Party (PdL). Another surprise name was that of Olympic canoeist Josefa Idem of the PD as Minister of Equal Opportunities and Sport. Like Kyenge she was born abroad, but the tall blonde who won her first medals for West Germany doesn't seem to have upset the Northern League to the same extent.
Two of the women Letta nominated, seven in all, are considerably more experienced: the new Foreign Minister, Emma Bonino of the Radical Party, has held several high-level posts both in Italy and in Europe, and Anna Maria Cancellieri at the Ministry of Justice is a veteran civil servant, as well as being Minister of the Interior in the last government.
The other top ministries have also gone to familiar names. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior is Angelino Alfano, Secretary of the PdL and one of Berlusconi's most loyal lieutenants. The Finance Ministry goes to a technocrat, Bank of Italy Director General Fabrizio Saccomanni. Mario Mauro of Mario Monti's Civic Choice party is at Defence and the new Minister for Labour and Welfare is Enrico Giovannini, an economist and president of ISTAT, Italy's statistics office.
Even before the names had been announced Beppe Grillo, leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S), had dismissed them as "a heap of bodies worthy of the best bunga bunga party. Everyone just stood by and watched apart from the one who really knows his bunga bunga."
The one who knows his bunga bunga is of course Silvio Berlusconi. And while most commentators agree that Letta has made the best of a bad job, and hope his government will at least endure long enough to carry out desperately needed economic and political reforms, Grillo is right that agreement would not have been reached without Berlusconi's consent and will not survive without his continuing support. Berlusconi's main preoccupation these days is his ongoing legal woes, including accusations for bribery, corruption, fraud, abuse of office and paying an underage prostitute for sex. Will having his "Little Angel" Alfano at the Ministry of the Interior be enough to let him sleep at night, or has he been promised more? An appointment as senator for life, for example, guaranteeing political immunity and a peaceful old age?
Despite the presence of fresh faces like Cécile Kyenge, Grillo is not alone in thinking that a true generational shift will not have taken place until Berlusconi and other old hands are no longer pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Tag: berlusconi, Grillo, Idem, Italian politics, Kyenge, Letta, M5S, PD, PdL
Scritto in Italian politics | 5 Commenti »
New face, old guard?
"It feels like a heavy responsibility on my shoulders. And if I may say so, it feels greater and heavier than my ability to bear it." On Wednesday Enrico Letta accepted President Giorgio Napolitano's mandate to try to form a new government with the same unbridled enthusiasm as the rest of Italy greeted the news. Chalices don't come much more poisoned than this one.
At only 46 years old and not well known outside the country, Letta may look like a fresh face, but he is career politician with deep-rooted cross-party credentials. Leader of the youth wing of the centre-right Christian Democratic party while still a student, he later drifted to the left, was twice a minister in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and until last week the party's deputy leader. From 2006 to 2008 he was cabinet secretary in the Prodi government, succeeding his uncle Gianni Letta (Berlusconi's right hand man), before handing the job back to Uncle Gianni when Berlusconi's Freedom Party (PdL) was re-elected in 2008.
He has promised to begin consultations on Thursday and return to Napolitano as soon as possible with his proposal for a new government. His history suggests that he is unlikely to come up with any great surprises. The Italian press certainly doesn't think he will: the names being bandied about to fill the various ministerial positions are all familiar (including that of Uncle Gianni). The consensus seems to point to a government of technocrats, experienced politicians, and technocrats who became experienced politicians in the last Monti government. In other words, a reshuffling of the caste that has ruled Italy since the birth of the "Second Republic" in the wake of the Tangentopoli corruption scandals of the 1990s.
Given the dire economic situation and the complex political reforms required, there is certainly an argument to be made for experience; although the shambles of the last two months has amply demonstrated that experience isn't everything. Letta is expected to form a government that includes figures from the mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties, while the opposition is likely to consist of Beppe Grillo's anti-party Five-Star Movement, the xenophobic Northern League, Nichi Vendola's Left Ecology and Freedom Party as well as, perhaps, defectors from the disintegrating PD. Articles have appeared in recent months comparing Grillo to Robespierre or invoking "the spectre of Weimar". Italy is not France before the revolution, nor Germany before the rise of Hitler. But with the traditional left/right and Catholic/secular divides that have characterised post-War Italian politics torn apart and replaced by the old guard v. the rest it certainly is unpredictable. What would the Third Republic look like? If the old guard doesn't get it right this time, we could soon find out.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Enrico Letta, Grillo, Italian politics, M5S, Napolitano, PD, PdL, President, Vendola
Napolitano is President but who won?
The 12th President of the Italian Republic has been sworn in and he bears a striking resemblance to the 11th President of the Italian Republic. Giorgio Napolitano accepted an unprecedented second term with a speech that delivered a sharp slap on the wrist to Italy's politicians for their "errors, failings and irresponsibility". After five ballots failed to produce a result, with the main parties further away than ever from agreement and the Democratic Party (PD) imploding, Italy's political leaders had run out of new ideas. So PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani, and the leader of the centre-right PdL Silvio Berlusconi fell back on an old one, and begged outgoing "King George" Napolitano to stand again.
At the sixth ballot Napolitano far surpassed the required number of votes, but he is unlikely to feel like a winner. When asked a week ago whether there was any chance of him standing again he replied that the idea "bordered on the ridiculous". He was not just being coy, and not only because if he serves his full term he will be 94-years-old before he can finally retire. He has already tried to broker an agreement between the three major groupings that had emerged from February's elections and failed. It is hard to imagine that he is relishing the prospect of trying again, even if his position has been strengthened: he is now able to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections, a power he did not possess in the last six months of his mandate.
So who did win? Certainly not Italian democracy, with its political class having proved incapable first of forming a government and then of electing a new president. Napolitano has earned great respect over the last seven years and may be the only figure authoritative enough to knock a few heads together and finally get them to form a government, but Italy's younger generation is crying out for new faces and new ideas, and the manner of his election was shambolic and unedifying.
Definitely not the Democratic Party (PD), now leaderless after Bersani's resignation, rudderless and in danger of splitting.
Not the Five-Star Movement (M5S). Having failed to impose his candidate Stefano Rodotà, its leader Beppe Grillo cried, "It's a coup d'etat!" and called on a million supporters to converge on Rome. Grillo is sometimes likened to Robespierre, but this brought to mind Mussolini. Perhaps realising this, Grillo backtracked, saying he couldn't make it to Rome just yet and when he did turn up, briefly, on Sunday, he tempered his language: it was just a mini-coup, a coupette.
When Napolitano passed the threshold of 504 votes, Pier Luigi Bersani appeared to break down under the stress of the preceding days: Silvio Berlusconi, on the other hand, was grinning like a Cheshire cat. With enemies like these, who needs friends? Whether he ultimately emerges the winner from the debacle of the last week remains to be seen, but he has undoubtedly lost less than most.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Grillo, M5S, Napolitano, PD, PdL, President, Quirinale, Rodotà
Bersani rues pact with the devil
Five ballots to elect Italy's head of state did not produce a winner, but did produce a clear loser. Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani was gambling when he made a pact with Berlusconi to field a single candidate, Franco Marini. He knew he would alienate a large section of his party, but if Marini had been elected the risk may have paid off. When Marini failed to reach the 672 votes required it became clear that he had widened the gaping rift in his party even further.
In the first ballot on Thursday, the 1007 electors voted 521 for Marini and 240 for Stefano Rodotá. None of the other 30 names reached three figures. 2 votes were cast for a certain Franco Marino, and one for Italy's answer to Pamela Anderson, actress and showgirl Valeria Marini. Was this a Freudian slip or was one of the participants not taking the process altogether seriously? We can assume the latter in the case of the "grand electors" who voted for Veronica Lario, the soon to be ex-wife of Silvio Berlusconi, and porn star Rocco Siffredi (you may have seen him play a horny vampire in the classic Ejacula).
With many disaffected PD voters joining supporters of Grillo's Five-Star Movement (M5S) in chants of "Rodotá! Rodotá!" outside parliament, and his rival Matteo Renzi heading to Rome from Florence, Bersani played for time, announcing that his members would vote scheda bianca (white ballot paper), i.e. abstain, for the following two rounds. In other words, they would wait for the fourth round when a simple majority would suffice. As the votes were tallied, President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini repeatedly called out, "Bianca, Bianca, Bianca", until her counterpart at the Senate, Pietro Grasso quipped under his breath, "This Bianca woman is going to be elected."
On Friday morning, Bersani tried a new approach. The cheers and standing ovation that greeted his announcement that the PD would now be voting for former Prime Minister Romano Prodi seemed to indicate he was on the right track. Prodi is Berlusconi's nemesis, the only leader to defeat him at the polls, and that alone is enough to make him a hero for many in the PD for whom Berlusconi is the devil. Alessandra Mussolini, Benito's granddaughter and a deputy in Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PdL), was of a different opinion, as she made clear by wearing a top crudely painted with the words "Il diavolo veste Prodi" (The Devil wears Prodi – a joke not really good enough to justify ruining a perfectly good T-shirt.)
With both the PD and the PdL abstaining, electors rushed through the third round in order to reach the fourth ballot, where Prodi would require only 504 votes to become the 12th president of Italy. It soon became clear that the parliamentarians would be working on Saturday and voting at least one more time. Prodi finally totalled 395, while the votes for Stefano Rodotá held relatively firm at 213. Beppe Grillo's M5S had proved much more disciplined than the PD, which should have been able to rely on the votes of 410 parliamentarians, as well as those of allies in other parties on the left.
The repercussions were quick to follow: Prodi withdrew his candidacy and made it clear that he was not at all happy to have been placed in such a position, and the President of the PD, Rosy Bindi, resigned. And then the rumours were confirmed; Pier Luigi Bersani had announced that he would resign as soon as the successor to Napolitano was elected. His pact with the devil had led to his downfall.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Grillo, Italian politics, Laura Boldrini, M5S, Prodi, Quirinale, Renzi, Rodotà
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Berlusconi and Bersani back Marini
In December 1971, it took 23 ballots and 15 days to elect the sixth President of the Italian Republic. If the fifteenth day hadn't been the 24th December, and the electors presumably impatient to head home for a jolly Christmas with their families, who knows how long the process would have dragged on. The name of the eventual winner, Giovanni Leone, did not even appear on the ballot papers until the 22nd round. Hence, despite all the "primaries", all the rhetoric and invective, all the horse-trading to choose the candidates, the eventual successor to Giorgio Napolitano could be someone else entirely.
Nevertheless, and for what it is worth, we now seem to have two leading candidates. The Five-Star Movement has selected 79-year-old Stefano Rodotà, a constitutional lawyer, co-author of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and former leftist member of parliament. It appears that Berlusconi and Bersani have agreed on 80-year-old Franco Marini, a former trade union leader and politician. Known as a pragmatist and skilled negotiator, he served as President of the Italian Senate from 2006 to 2008. What else the two big Bers of the centre-right and centre-left have agreed on, who has promised what to whom when, will no doubt emerge later.
So two experienced operators, with Rodotà perhaps commanding the greatest cross-party respect. But not exactly fresh young faces. Grillo said of Rodotà: "Too old? Perhaps, but we're voting for him anyway." He added that he thought that in the end Giuliano Amato, a relative spring chicken at only 74 years old, would be made president. Hardly a ringing endorsement, Beppe. Matteo Renzi, the Democratic Party (PD) mayor of Florence and brash young challenger for Bersani's crown, was equally flattering about his party's candidate, calling him "a man of the last century", adding that he and his supporters within the PD, thought to number over 50, would not vote for him. Nichi Vendola of the Left Ecology Freedom Party (SEL) has also indicated that he would prefer Rodotà to Marini.
Discouraging for those hoping that Italy might see a fresh new face on the Quirinale Hill, even a woman! The only female candidate is Manuela Dal Lago, a youngster at only 64 years old. If anyone wants to make a bet, I'll put money on the fact that the Northern League's candidate will not win. And that is as far as I am willing to stick my neck out at this point. If 1971 is anything to go by, it could be very early days yet.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Italian politics, M5S Berlusconi, Manuela Dal Lago, Marini, President, Quirinale, Renzi, Rodotà
Scritto in Senza categoria | 10 Commenti »
Grillo names his candidate
The elections for the President of the Italian Republic begin on Thursday. The rules are relatively simple. There are 1007 "grand electors": 630 deputies, 319 senators and 58 delegates from the regions. In order to win on the first three ballots a candidate must reach two-thirds of the vote (671). If it goes to a fourth ballot, 50% + 1 (504) suffice.
So, fancy a bet on the winner? Best of luck. Reading this in the hope of getting a few pointers? I can't help. Expecting at least a rundown of the favourites? Sorry. Hoping for the name of a dark horse who might be worth a punt? No can do. The reality is that on the eve of the election only one of the major political forces has even announced which horse it is entering in the race for the Quirinale Palace.
On Tuesday Beppe Grillo's Five-Star Movement (M5S) published a list of 10 names that had emerged from its "Quirinarie" (its online primary for the Quirinale Palace). Grillo himself immediately withdrew his name. The remaining nine were eminently "presentable", starting with the first past the post, journalist Milena Gabanelli. "Let's start by agreeing on Gabanelli", Grillo teased Bersani, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party PD, "and it could lead to further deals." Unfortunately, no one had asked the presenter of the leading current affairs programme Reporter if she felt up for the race. A woman of obvious intelligence, courage and integrity, she looked genuinely stunned to be in the running and said she felt "embarrassed, surprised and grateful", as well "overrated". After a no doubt sleepless night she finally announced that she preferred to continue trying to change things through her work.
Gino Strada, founder of the NGO Emergency, ruled himself out almost immediately. He had come second in the "primaries", although whether he was beaten by several lengths or just pipped at the post is unclear, since for all its cries of transparency, coherence and democracy the M5S has so far failed to publish any numbers. Grillo has announced that third placed Stefano Rodotà is now the M5S's candidate. A former professor of law at the Sorbonne, Oxford and Stanford etc., and one of the authors of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, he has racked up many years of experience as a politician at both the national and European level. Rodotà could appeal to the rank and file of the Democratic Party (PD) if not necessarily to its leaders.
It is hard to imagine why anyone would want the job in the current climate. This is a race where the only thing worse than coming last could be coming first. At least the M5S has put forward a candidate: a day before voting starts, we still do not know who else will be lining up at the starting gate. I wouldn't part with any money just yet.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Gabanelli, Grillo, Italian politics, M5S, President, Quirinale
The battle for the Hill
Rome traditionally is said to have seven hills, but at the moment Italy's political class is only concerned with one, the Quirinale, where the presidential palace is located. The process to elect the successor to the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano will begin next week, and rarely has so much rested on the outcome. Although the list of presidential duties sounds impressive, in practice it usually consists of ratifying decisions taken by the government, including declarations of war, something post-Mussolini Italian governments have been mercifully loath to make. But the next tenant of the Quirinale Palace will have to deal with one of the worst political crises the country has ever faced. Of course, the leaders of the three major groupings who shared the vote on 24-25 February could suddenly decide to set all personal ambitions and interests aside for the good of the people and do what is best for the country. But don't hold your breath.
A more likely scenario is that the 12th President of the Italian Republic will be forced to call fresh elections, leaving the country still without a government in the meantime. Thus it is more important than ever that the man, or woman, chosen be a figure of authority able to command respect across the political divide.
The manoeuvring continues. On Tuesday the two big Bers, Berlusconi and Bersani, finally had their much-anticipated tête-à-tête. There were immediately cries of "Inciucio!" Stitch-up! The word was that Berlusconi had agreed to support the leader of the Democratic Party (PD) Bersani for "il Colle" (the Hill), in exchange for an amnesty that would relieve him of his judicial woes, including a four-year sentence for fraud and charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute. In an interview with La Repubblica Berlusconi stated that he was not opposed to voting for a PD candidate, but denied there had been talk of an amnesty. For his part, Bersani pooh-poohed the whole idea. There was no such deal: the only hills he was interested in were those of his native Piacenza.
As if Berlusconi wasn't enough to deal with, Bersani is still facing rumbling in the ranks. The bright young centre-left mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, was furious that he was not going to be a "grand elector". The elections for the President take place in a joint session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, but each Italian region also sends three representatives. Renzi had booked his train ticket to the capital, but claimed that "phone calls from Rome" meant he had to cancel his reservation. There was open talk of schism in the PD, as in: "There is no risk of this kind (schism)," (leader Bersani); and: "There is absolutely no risk of this kind," (elder statesman Massimo D'Alema). When such authoritative figures deny something so definitively you start to suspect it must be true.
On Friday the "Ten Wise Men" Napolitano had asked to come up with some solutions to Italy's many problems presented their final reports. Although drawn from across the political spectrum they had succeeded in finding common ground. Their proposals included a law on conflict of interests; cutting back the bloated administration by reducing the number of deputies and senators, as well as the number of permanent parliamentary committees; measures to help recession-hit families, migrants and the unemployed; and support for small- and medium-sized business. They offered several possible alternatives for electoral reform but stressed that no system could guarantee a majority government while there were two chambers of equal power.
Napolitano declared that he considered his job done and said it is now up to the political parties and his successor to take it from here. With the presentation of a number of sensible and widely agreed proposals, he has managed to end his mandate on a seemingly positive note. And if it all comes to nothing, it won't be his fault.
Tag: berlusconi, Bersani, Italian politics, Napolitano, Quirinale, Renzi, wise men
Real suffering as incomes drop
Last week a couple in their sixties in a small town south of Ancona committed suicide. Romeo Dionisi was a building worker who lost his job four years ago. His wife Anna Maria Sopranzi was retired with a pension of around €500 a month. Struggling to get by on odd jobs, owed money by previous employers and with mounting debts, it all finally became too much for them. They left a note apologising to their families for the inconvenience caused and telling them to look in the garage, where they were found hanging side by side. Her brother Giuseppe Sopranzi was so distraught by the news that he ran to the port and jumped into the water. His body was later recovered by the harbour authorities.
These individual human tragedies are heartbreaking, but sadly they happen from time to time. It is the reaction to this particular story that is significant and illustrative of the current climate in Italy. The suicides were widely covered by the national media and inevitably linked to the economic crisis. Laura Boldrini, the newly elected speaker of the Chamber of Deputies felt the need to attend the funerals. Elected to parliament as a member of the Left Ecology Freedom party (SEL) for the first time last year, Boldrini previously worked for a number of UN agencies, and can hardly be held personally responsible for Italy's current woes. Yet mourners greeted her with cries of "Thieves!" and "Murderers!" It was also reported that Dionisi's sister told her that she should not have come. However, Gianna Dionisi later made a point of denying this, declaring Boldrini a wonderful person who showed "the courage of a lion" by coming, while other politicians were "cowards".
The couple have become symbols, a human story that illustrates the often confusing but relentlessly depressing statistics. The latest figures from Italy's National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) show that the average Italian family's disposable income fell by 2.1% in 2012. If inflation is taken into account, this means that buying power fell by a whopping 4.8%. The drop was even greater in the last quarter, 5.4% down on the same period in 2011. Meanwhile, unemployment stands at almost 12% and is heading for 40% among 15-24 year olds, with over a million jobs lost in 2012. For the first time in 30 years, public spending on salaries has fallen, good news for the Italian balance of payments, not so good for the 3 million Italians out of work. According to Brussels, last year Italy was hit by the crisis more than any other European country, with 15% of the population in financial difficulty. With investment in research and development among the lowest in Europe, bright young graduates are fleeing abroad in search of decent opportunities. Those who stay and are lucky enough to be in work, are finding that taxes are biting ever deeper into their incomes, a situation destined to get even worse as further hikes come into force later this year. It is little wonder that many Italians struggle to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Boldrini and many others elected for the first time at the last elections may not be responsible for the current malaise but they have accepted the job of helping to solve it. Italy's politicians, old guard and new, need to keep in mind that while they manoeuvre and bicker, real people are suffering, sometimes even dying.
Tag: Crisis, Dionisi, Economy, Italian politics, Laura Boldrini
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The political waters grow even muddier
So, the elections end with the vote split between three main parties. Berlusconi's Freedom Party (PDL) wants to form a government with Bersani's Democratic party (PD). But Bersani refuses point blank to have anything to do with Berlusconi. He wants to form a government with Grillo's Five Star Movement (M5S). However, Grillo is not merely against any alliance with Bersani or any other party he is fundamentally opposed to political parties as such and favours a more "direct" and transparent form of democracy, with members of parliament representing the will of the people. President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, despairing that anyone will be able to form a government, and prevented by the constitution from dissolving parliament at this late stage in his mandate, establishes two committees of ten "wise men" to examine the most pressing questions, a move that elicits reactions ranging from scepticism to indifference. Could things get any messier? Well, yes, they could and did.
Rifts appeared not only between the parties but within them. Some of Grillo's supporters began to mutter about forming an alliance with Bersani to keep Berlusconi out of power, and defy their leader by voting for the left's candidate for the Presidency of the Senate, Pietro Grasso. Then on Thursday morning Matteo Renzi, the telegenic young mayor of Florence who challenged Bersani for the leadership of the PD in November, broke the truce that had held during the election. Since Bersani snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, Renzi had been playing nice but obviously decided that the time was ripe to strike. He declared that either Berlusconi was the leader of the impresentabili, the "unpresentables" as one journalist famously called his PDL candidates, and therefore there should be another election, or the PD should form a government with the PDL, an alliance which would hopefully last long enough to at least reform the electoral system that led to this impasse.
Renzi, who earned himself the nickname the Rottamatore, or scrap man, for asserting that Italy's aging political class should be consigned to the scrap heap, openly declared his bid for the leadership of the party once more. Whether you consider him a breath of much needed fresh air or an over-ambitious opportunist, there is little doubt that in a future election he could draw votes from both the right and from the M5S. On the one hand the 38-year-old is not easily dismissed as an "old Communist", a label that Berlusconi has used so effectively over the years against the PD, on the other many of his policies to reduce the cost of government and abolish public financing of political parties chime with those of the M5S. The latest SWG poll shows a Renzi-led PDL attracting 36% of the vote, 8% higher than with Bersani at the helm. In the short term, however, his move further stirs up the already very muddy waters.
Then, as if to underline the thin line between tragedy and farce, one of Napolitano's "wise men" belied the label and fell for a prank phone call from an impersonator pretending to be astrophysicist Margherita Hack. Radio 24 listeners were treated to Valerio Onida admitting that the committees were "probably useless" and merely served to "fill in time during the deadlock". He went on to insult Berlusconi: "He should enjoy his old age and leave the Italians in peace." While this is by no means an uncommon view, it was extremely embarrassing for Napolitano, and Onida was forced to issue a public apology. But the damage was done, undermining the work of the committees almost before they had started and gifting Berlusconi the role of injured party. More was to follow. On Friday morning Grillo, disturbed by growing rebellion in the ranks, summoned the M5S deputies and senators to a piazza in Rome, where they boarded two coaches bound for a top secret location, presumably to be read the riot act. So much for openness and transparency.
Could things get any messier? Watch this space.
Tag: Bersani, Grillo, M5S Berlusconi, Onida, Renzi
The Ten Wise Men of Easter
On February 11 this year the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by announcing he would resign on February 28. On March 13 a figure appeared on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica and announced, "Habemus Papam". On March 19, five weeks after Benedict's initial announcement, Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, celebrated the mass for the start of the Petrine Ministry. And that was more or less that. Last week, Holy Week, Francis got on with doing what popes do in the busiest week in the Catholic Church's calendar.
Outside the walls of the Vatican in the state of Italy, things are not so clear. Five weeks since Italy's national election, at a time when the country's dire financial situation means it needs a strong government more than ever, any kind of government looks further away now than it did after the polls closed.
It is not President Giorgio Napolitano's fault. At 87 and only six weeks from the end of his mandate, he may have thought he had earned a quiet Easter picnicking with the grandkids. Instead his Easter has been as busy as the Pope's, and certainly busier than he has been at any time other time holding what is usually a largely ceremonial role. But it is difficult to see his latest attempt as anything but a frantic ploy to avoid simply throwing up his hands and exclaiming: "To hell with this, I give up." You really couldn't blame him if he did and reports over the weekend suggested he had. A President in the last six months of his mandate cannot dissolve parliament, so resigning would pave the way for his successor to call fresh elections. The process for electing a new president is due to begin April 15, so it is looking increasingly likely that this will happen anyway, but meanwhile Giorgio soldiers on.
Even by the standards of Italian politics the situation is a mess. While the Italian electoral system rarely produces a clear winner, eventually either the centre-left or the centre-right cobbles together a coalition with one or more of the smaller groups and things go on much as usual. This time the vote is split three ways, with the left-wing Democratic Party (PD) able to claim a majority in the Chamber of Deputies only because current election law guarantees the party with the most votes 54% of the seats. But with no such rule applying in the Senate, the PD or Berlusconi's PDL would have to strike a deal with the third party in order to form a government. But this time there is a new and very unpredictable player in the game, the M5S, the Five Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo. Channelling widespread disenchantment with an inefficient, bloated political system, he started his political career by organising V-Day rallies, where he led chants of vaffanculo (fuck off) aimed at politicians and the whole political system, and announced in a rare interview for the BBC, "We want to destroy everything." The M5S has proved very skilled at articulating the problems but less so at coming up with workable solutions.
While the rest of Italy planned their Easter weekend Napolitano did the most logical thing and gave Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the PD a week to convince him that he was in a position to form a government with a shelf life longer than a chocolate Easter egg. It has often been observed that political leaders age dramatically during their years in office. Rarely has a leader aged so much in so little time simply trying to get into office as Bersani. He failed.
As for Berlusconi, compromise is not necessarily in his interest. Desperate to stay in office to prevent tough conflict of interest laws being passed, his best bet may well be fresh elections, however damaging for the country. For the moment, Napolitano has kept Monti's caretaker government in place and, perhaps getting his Christian holidays mixed up, decided to rely on the Wise Men to try to solve Italy's problems, ten in this case. (No one can accuse Napolitano of tokenism; there is not one Wise Woman in the group, something he belatedly apologised for.) A mixture of political and institutional figures, four have been asked to look into electoral and constitutional reform and six at economic and social issues. They began work on Tuesday, with Napolitano clarifying that they are not being asked to come up with a solution leading to a government, but to indicate what are the most serious, urgent and fundamental problems facing the country. They have ten days to do so.
One thing that can be said for the plan is that the President has finally succeeded in uniting all parts of the political spectrum. No one likes it, with "a complete waste of time" being one of the more positive reactions. Napolitano could not be blamed for gazing enviously across the Tiber and wishing he had the absolute power of the new man in the Vatican.
Tag: politics wise men Napolitano Bersani Berlusconi
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