No clues as to what is going to happen. Mario Draghi and politics kept the italians about the outcome of the latest political storm in the country, of sky-high decibels and contradictory indiscretions. The danger is that in the next few hours the chaos will end up breaking the transalpine Executive, but neither the latest polls nor the crossed declarations of the political forces allow us to venture definitive forecasts about the end of a crisis which also worries the European Union. So much so that not even the bookmakers have come to an agreement on the outcome.
True to his proverbial discretion, Draghi has contributed in the first person to this climate of total uncertainty about his future as italian prime minister. As has been happening for days, the former head of the European Central Bank continues to offer no clues as to where the crisis that the populist 5-Star Movement (M5E), one of his coalition partners, could lead to last Thursday. After the initial pessimism, his environment has hinted in the last few hours that Draghi could withdraw the resignation that he presented after the scuffle with the M5S due to the alleged divisions between this force and the rest of the coalition as a result of the latest government measures. But nothing has been expressed in public.
On the Italian peninsula, the only ones who have been blunt in conveying their desire for the former banker to remain prime minister have been 1,600 mayors of the country. One after another they have signed –since last weekend– a petition to ask the president not to leave his post in a very delicate moment for the economy the country and Europe. On the contrary, the only party on the right that is not part of the government coalition, Brothers from Italy of Giorgia Meloni, has done the opposite. The moment of political fragility has been seen by the right-wing formation as an opportunity to ask again that the elections be held before the established end of the legislature, in the spring of 2023.
Support from the coalition to Draghi
Instead, Enrico Letta, head of the progressive Democratic Party, one of the few with whom Draghi met during the day, has opted for silence, after hinting that his first option is for the prime minister to remain in office. Publicly, it is the same position expressed by the rest of the coalition parties, also including the right-wingers. Come on Italy and the Liga. However, these last two formations have also said that they do not fear the calling of possible early elections and insist on rejecting the M5E for being “unreliable”.
In any case, a first response will arrive this Wednesday, the day on which the parliamentary agenda includes an expected Draghi’s speech in the Senatewhich will be followed by a vote on a confidence motion and, the next day, another vote in the Italian Congress. It will be then that the magnitude of the particular Vietnam that the M5E is experiencing, whose latest intrigues have put it in danger of new splits, after the departure of Luigi Di Maio, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a month ago now.
To stay in government, at a time when there is an ongoing war in Ukraine and Italy has to deal with deeper economic repercussions than those of its EU partners, Draghi used to say that he needed the support of the M5E as well. The unknown is knowing if he has changed his mind or if his patience has run out.