Status: 05/10/2022 06:42 a.m
Stability returned to Italy’s politics under Prime Minister Draghi, and he mastered the pandemic and reforms with efficiency. But now the left and right camp are restless – and have discovered a sensitive campaign issue.
It’s hard to believe that the last elections were held in Italy in 2018 – after all, the third government has been in office since then. This is due to the Italian peculiarity that governments fail on average every year and a half, but then new elections are not necessarily held if the parties get together again in new constellations.
The Conte 1 government was followed by the Conte 2 government. When this failed due to the dispute over the Corona policy and the distribution of the EU billions, President Sergio Mattarella installed the former ECB head Mario Draghi as the new head of government. A professional in finance and European relations should fix it. Europe soon marveled at Draghi’s political and economic successes.
“A lot of energy and a good team”
Italy recovered economically, reforms were decided, and the fight against the pandemic was carried out with great determination. Then Italy also won the European Football Championship and the Eurovision Song Contest. One was almost surprised that Draghi had nothing to do with it.
Seen from the outside, he is the right man in the right place at the right time, confirms Nino Galetti, head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Rome: “Mario Draghi was the one who implemented various reforms with a lot of vigor and with a good team of experts and politicians tackled, for example the administrative reform, the judicial reform.” There are currently more than five million procedures in Italy – which lasted an average of five years. For Galetti, this shows: “You have to do it and Draghi was exactly the right person for that.”
Italy also followed a clear course in the fight against the corona pandemic: the measures were largely accepted by the population, and the vaccination campaign was organized and carried out with the help of a general at the top.
Unrest from right and left
Nevertheless, things are seething inside – and for Galetti that is precisely due to the Italian phenomenon of the short-lived nature of governments. “After a year, the media and political opponents are getting restless and saying: Well, it’s about time to establish a new government. You can see very clearly that especially on the political fringes, in the populist parties from the left and right – the Five Stars and the Lega – there is unrest.”
Both have plummeted in the polls since 2018 and are now desperately looking for popular campaign issues. Since most Corona measures were lifted on May 1st, the new topic is: arms deliveries. The two parties are considered pro-Russia. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi addressed the Italian MPs in a video message in March, it was noticeable that many were missing. In particular, the ranks of the five stars and the Lega were severely thinned out. This did not go down particularly well with Italian voters, as the poll results show.
Election campaign issue of arms deliveries
The chairwoman of the right-wing populist party Fratelli d’Italia Giorgia Meloni positioned himself more skilfully. She immediately condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With more than 22 percent, she is currently at the top of the list of voters – just ahead of the Social Democrats (PD).
Many see them as solid as a rock with their leader Enrico Letta, but Galetti says it’s obviously the fate of the party leader not to be able to make the PD stronger. The Social Democrats cannot hope for a Draghi effect, because Draghi will not stand for them – nor for any other party. At least that’s what he said clearly.
Otherwise, Draghi is not a friend of many words and explanations: He usually makes decisions first and then provides information. An experience that not only the Italian public but also Germany and other partners of Italy are making – for example in Ukraine policy. The only advance information from the Palazzo Chigi about Draghi’s trip to Washington is that he is meeting with US President Joe Biden to reaffirm the historic friendship and strong partnership between the two countries. In addition, they want to coordinate the measures to support Ukraine. It is still unclear whether and in what form Italy will support Ukraine with heavy weapons.
On his final day in the US, Draghi is set to receive the Atlantic Council’s 2022 Distinguished Leadership Award. It’s uncertain how much use that will be to him at home – Italy has chased many excellent heads of government out of court. The next parliamentary elections are actually in early 2023. But it is unclear whether stability will last until then.