Italian political star shakes up old guard
ROME — He sometimes wears a leather bomber jacket, embracing the iconography of the rebel. He has rocketed through Italian politics by taking on the establishment, especially in his own left-leaning party. He is media savvy, evoking comparisons to Tony Blair, and he has tapped into a national yearning for change by cultivating a persona as a political wrecking ball with an everyman appeal.
And now, in swift and stunning fashion, Matteo Renzi, only 39, a former Boy Scout and “Wheel of Fortune” winner, has arrived as the central figure in Italian politics — and a new force in Europe — with an agenda that seems as much psychological as political: to shake Italy out of its malaise, push through major changes and shatter the entrenched old guard that dominates politics but has failed to reverse Italy’s painful decline.
It is the tallest of orders, made more difficult by the circumstances of Renzi’s ascent. Rather than winning a national election, his long-stated goal, Renzi last week engineered the removal of Enrico Letta, the sitting prime minister and a member of his own Democratic Party.
Critics said the move smacked of the old-style insider politics Renzi claims to oppose, even as admirers called it an unpleasant necessity and a bold gamble.
“The odds are against Renzi,” said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the Luiss School of Government in Rome. “But against these odds is a young politician with a significant personality. I just don’t know if that personality is enough.”
Within days, Renzi, who has been a rising national star since he became mayor of Flor- ence in 2009, is likely to be installed as Italy’s next and youngest prime minister. On Friday, Letta handed in his resignation to Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, and by sometime this week Parliament could be asked to complete the transition in a confidence vote that Renzi is expected to win.
Renzi has drawn comparisons to Blair, the former British prime minister, not only because of his style and generational appeal but also because he has confronted the leftist ideology of his party and embraced a more business-friendly approach, promising to cut corporate taxes and overhaul labor laws.
Renzi’s rise also speaks to Italy’s predicament in a Europe still convulsing from the aftermath of the economic crisis.
Southern tier countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain have had to push through painful economic changes or risk losing the financial lifeline provided by the troika of international lenders.
Italy has avoided an outside bailout, and as a result it has been spared the extreme shock therapy endured by its southern neighbors.
But this has allowed the political establishment to remain largely intact, without making major changes, even as the economy remains stagnant.
This state of affairs has fueled popular support for anti-establishment figures like comedian Beppe Grillo, founder of the Five Star Movement, and it created an opening for Renzi to take control of the Democratic Party by arguing that the old guard was a spent force.