Draghi bids for the Italian presidency
A joint session of 1,009 parliamentarians and regional delegates began a secret ballot on Monday to elect the successor to Italian president Sergio Mattarella, says Jason Horowitz in The New York Times. For all the customary politicking, it is usually a “routine affair”. This time is different, however, because the current prime minister, Mario Draghi, is a “top contender”. If elected, he will swap his hands-on job for a more prestigious, but “ceremonial role”. This is stoking fears that Italy could return to a “more fractured and chaotic politics”.
Draghi, a former European Central Bank president and European heavyweight, has presided over nearly a year of “unusual calm and unity”, says The Economist. Rarely has this calm been more needed. Italy is slated to receive the lion’s share of the EU’s €750bn Covid recovery funds. The country’s “dismal” performance over the past 20 years has “acted as a brake” on economic growth of the entire EU and, note Allessandra Migliaccio and Chiara Albanese in Bloomberg, the size of the chunk is “a tacit acknowledgement that, with a debt pile equal to 154% of GDP, it is too big to fail”. However, the cash is due in tranches, and to “keep the money flowing”, the EU will need to see progress.
The risk, says The Economist, is a post-Draghi government “would get little done”. The parliamentary term is due to end in March 2023 and the political parties that currently back Draghi will “want to start to position themselves for the next election, pulling apart in their different elections”. But if Draghi stays in his job, he “risks getting dragged into the mire of political infighting”, says Bloomberg. Italian presidents have “more power than meets the eye”: they dissolve parliament or decide not to, which means they can act as a “force for stability”, and no one becomes premier without their consent. As his supporters contend, adds Horowitz, “not electing him president is “the much greater risk”.