Conte, Giuseppe

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares99 Views

    The Woman Shaking Up Italian Politics (No, Not the New Prime Minister)

    by

    Daughter of Italian and Jewish American parents, Elly Schlein wants to remake the center-left opposition to Giorgia Meloni, if only her party can survive it.ROME — Growing up in Switzerland, Elly Schlein felt a little lost.“I was the black sheep. Because my brother and sister seemed to be more sure of what they would do,” the politician recalled. She watched Italian neorealist cinema and American comedies, played Philip Glass on the piano, pet her dwarf bunny named after Freddie Mercury, listened to the Cranberries and ultimately got involved in her school’s politics. “It took a lot more time for me to find my way,” she said.Last weekend, Ms. Schlein, 37, found her way into the center of the debate about the future of the European left when she stunned the liberal establishment and reordered Italy’s political landscape by winning a primary election to become the first woman to lead the country’s center-left Democratic Party. She is promising, she said in her new office headquarters on Wednesday, to “change deeply” a party in the midst of an identity crisis.It is hard to embody change in Italy more than Ms. Schlein.A woman in a relationship with a woman, she is the daughter of a Jewish American father; granddaughter of an Italian antifascist partisan; proud native of Lugano, Switzerland; former volunteer for Barack Obama; collaborator on an award-winning documentary about Albanian refugees; fan of “Naked Gun” movies; shredder of Green Day chords on her electric guitar; and fervent progressive eager to make common international cause with “A.O.C.,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.With her election, Ms. Schlein has catapulted Italy, which long seemed a Country for Old Men, into markedly different territory. A female opposition leader now is pitted against the first female prime minister, the right-wing nationalist Giorgia Meloni.Ms. Schlein grew up in Lugano, Switzerland, and described herself as the “black sheep” of her family. Andrea Wyner for The New York Times“It’s a different scenario now,” said Ms. Schlein, who had the professorial air of her professor parents as she leafed through newspapers. “And an interesting one, because I’ve always said that we don’t need just a female leadership. We need a feminist leadership.”The two women could hardly be more different. Ms. Meloni, who called Ms. Schlein to congratulate her, was raised by a single mother in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, was a youth activist in post-Fascist parties and came to prominence on an anti-migrant, Italy-first platform. Her battle cry: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m a Christian!”Explore The Times’s Saturday ProfilesThey are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.Going Gray: The prominent news anchor Lisa LaFlamme was unceremoniously dismissed not long after she stopped dyeing her hair — setting off debates across Canada.Reclaiming His Voice: While on a rescue mission in Ukraine, an aspiring opera singer was shot in the lungs. His recovery is a marvel of medicine, chance and his own spirit.A Marxist Mayor: A Communist politician in Graz, Austria, wants to redistribute wealth. A focus on housing, her own modest lifestyle and a hard childhood have helped her popularity.Cleaning Up Senegal: Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. His goal? Ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags.Princess Rita: A Texas rancher’s daughter landed a dream role as a Roman princess. A battle over the estate of her late husband has soured the reality.Ms. Schlein — who has Italian, Swiss and American passports — said she didn’t understand how being “a woman, a mother and a Christian helps Italians to pay their bills.” She added: “I am a woman. I love another woman. I am not a mother, but I am not less of a woman for this.”She argued that Ms. Meloni represented an ideology that viewed women merely for their reproductive and child-rearing roles. Ms. Meloni has “never described herself as an antifascist,” Ms. Schlein said, arguing that she instead threw red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies making it harder to save migrants at sea.Such liberal red meat is likely to sate the base of progressives and young voters that Ms. Schlein brought into the Democratic Party fold in last Sunday’s primary. But it did little for the left in the election Ms. Meloni won easily in September. Ms. Schlein’s party now has about half the support of Ms. Meloni’s.Moderate critics within Ms. Schlein’s own deeply divided party fear that she will fold its big tent by forfeiting the political center, driving the party to the far left, gutting it of its reputation for sober competence, and blending it with — or feeding it to — the reinvigorated, populist Five Star Movement.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni at a rally in September, in Rome. Ms. Schlein has criticized the prime minister for hurling red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies on migrants.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesBut Ms. Schlein is not convinced that denizens of an Italian middle even exist. “Where are they today?” she asked in her perfect English, noting that “when somebody had tried to represent them with new political options, it never went really well.” Instead, she saw the way forward as making “clear who we want to represent” — struggling Italians.She said she would spread “environmentalist and feminist” solutions to endemic Italian problems such as female unemployment and inequality in “clearly a patriarchal country.” She would make amends for “the mistakes made in the past,” especially during the leadership of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which led her to quit the Democratic Party nearly a decade ago.She would reintroduce labor protections, tax the rich, reconnect with trade unions, invest in a greener economy and push for gay and immigrant rights. This week, she visited the site of a deadly shipwreck of migrants in Calabria and effectively interrogated Ms. Meloni’s interior minister for appearing to blame the victims.“Rights, civil rights and social rights, for us are strictly interconnected,” she said in the interview, adding, “The left lost in the moment it became shy on these issues.”One major change on her agenda is to put her party in a position to win elections by making alliances with partners who agreed on critical progressive issues, such as the support of a universal income.“Five Star, of course,” she said. “They have a lot of support.”But Giuseppe Conte, the leader of Five Star, which has demonstrated a strong illiberal streak over recent years, was the prime minister who signed off on the crackdown of migrant rescue ships at sea. He has emerged as Italy’s main opponent to Ms. Meloni’s vow to keep sending weapons to Ukraine.Ms. Schlein with her assistant in her temporary office at the party headquarters in Rome.Massimo Berruti for The New York TimesFive Star’s position on Ukraine, Ms. Schlein said, “I don’t agree on.” She described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia and noted it had voted to send arms over the next year, because “it’s necessary now.”Supporters of Ukraine, however, worry about Ms. Schlein’s ongoing commitment because of her talk of being a “pacifist” and what some consider her naïve argument that Europe somehow needed to convince China to force Russia to end the war.But she said she feels a personal connection to Ukraine. Her grandfather was from Ukraine, she said, and after he emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Elizabeth, N.J., his family back home was almost certainly wiped out in the Holocaust. Her Italian grandfather, who eventually became a Socialist lawmaker, refused to wear the “black shirts of the Fascists” during his graduation and “was an antifascist lawyer” who, she said, would “defend Jews in trials.”That family history has made her keenly sensitive to “what nationalism has brought to the European continent,” she said, adding, with a reference to the Russian president, “This war is a nationalist war from Putin.”Ms. Schlein was herself not raised Jewish, though she called herself “particularly proud” of her Jewish ancestry. In a friendly interview during the campaign, she told an Italian website that her last name and pronounced nose, what she considers her defining physical feature, attracted odious anti-Semitic attacks. But, she noted, the nose was not Jewish, but “typically Etruscan.”The Colosseum lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in Rome, in February. Ms. Schlein described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressAsked about that comment, Ms. Schlein’s verbosity stalled. “I wouldn’t go back to that,” she said. “No, thanks.” When pressed on what an Etruscan nose looked like, she threw her hands up and acknowledged, “They don’t even exist!”The point, she said, was that she learned that being a “woman,” and “an L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ person” and “very proudly the daughter of a Jewish father” made her a prime target “from the extreme right or also from my extreme left sometimes.” Ms. Schlein declined in the interview to discuss her family or her partner in further detail.Ms. Schlein said addressing such injustices drew her into politics. A star pupil in her Lugano high school, she said, she wanted to take her talents to Italy, “because I’ve always felt that this country, the country of my mother, has strong potential that only needs to be freed.”She went to art school in Bologna. Then she dropped film for law and went from campus politics to the real thing — making powerful friends, gaining fluency in social media and doing stints in the European and Italian Parliaments along the way. When she quit the Democratic Party to protest the loss of its liberal way, she supported a movement to “occupy” the party.Now she occupies the leadership headquarters near the Spanish Steps, and after a short walk toward Ms. Meloni’s palace, Ms. Schlein, the progressive no one saw coming, entertained taking that place over, too.“Well,” she said. “We’ll see.” More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Giorgia Meloni's Election Win in Italy: Here’s What To Know

      by

      Giorgia Meloni, leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy, looked set to become prime minister after her party garnered more votes than any other.After a historic national election in Italy, nearly complete election results on Monday showed a clear victory for a right-wing coalition led by a party descended from the remnants of fascism. The impressive showing for that party — the highest of any single party — made it almost certain that Giorgia Meloni, its leader, would become Italy’s first female prime minister.The right-wing coalition won 44 percent of the votes across the country, while the left, which failed to cobble together a significant alliance, barely surpassed 26 percent. Those results would give the right the ability to govern without help from the opposition.Giorgia Meloni holding a sign reading “Thank you Italy” at a news conference on Monday. She is almost certain to become Italy’s first female prime minister.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesItaly will not have a new government for weeks, though, as the system requires the newly elected Parliament to be seated before negotiations on who becomes prime minister. A new government should be installed by the end of October or early November, analysts said.The country’s hard turn to the right has sent shock waves across Europe after a period of stability in Italy led by Mario Draghi, the centrist technocrat who resigned as prime minister in July. Mr. Draghi directed some 190 billion euros, about $184 billion, in Covid recovery funds to modernize the country and helped lead Europe’s strong response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.But on Monday, European analysts said that Ms. Meloni, who has a long record of bashing the European Union and international bankers, did not represent an immediate economic or political threat to the bloc. They said that the real risk was for Italy, noting that the nation would likely lose the influence it exercised under Mr. Draghi, going from a leading country to one that Europe watches anxiously.Here’s what to know about the landmark vote.Key Points From Italy’s Election ResultsSome familiar names are back: Berlusconi and Salvini.The Five Star Movement was resurgent.The center-left was split, and suffered for it.Turnout hit a record low.The majority looks strong, and maybe even stable.Some familiar names are back: Berlusconi and Salvini.One vote out of every four cast was for the hard-right Brothers of Italy, known for its anti-immigrant policies, nationalist views and focus on “traditional” families. The party managed to multiply its support more than sixfold, to 26 percent in Sunday’s election, from 4 percent in 2018. Ms. Meloni’s party is now the largest in the country and the strongest within the coalition.In an early-morning speech from an upscale Roman hotel, Ms. Meloni said that Italians’ indication was “clear” for a government “led by Brothers of Italy,” an apparent signal that she expected her coalition partners to support her for prime minister.Before the election, Matteo Salvini of the nationalist League party; and Silvio Berlusconi, the four-time former prime minister and leader of Forza Italia — her main partners in the coalition — had been ambivalent about clearly designating her the top candidate for prime minister.Ms. Meloni at a rally on Thursday in Rome with her right-wing coalition partners Matteo Salvini, left; Silvio Berlusconi, center; and Maurizio Lupi.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressBut the League party, which sought to expand from its northern, business-oriented base to a nationalist party on the strength of an anti-migrant appeal, had such a poor showing on Sunday that analysts said it was unlikely to be able to argue about who gets to lead the country. The party won less than 9 percent of the vote, about half of what it obtained in 2018, hemorrhaging support especially in its stronghold in the northern regions.Ms. Meloni’s party devoured the League’s support, leaving Mr. Salvini’s leverage, and even leadership, in doubt. Some representatives of the League have started calling for his resignation.Mr. Berlusconi, positioning himself as the most moderate partner in the coalition, should hold on to his influence even though his party also lost support. Forza Italia took 8 percent in this election, compared with 14 percent in 2018. In 2001, the party had 29 percent.The Five Star Movement was resurgent.One of the surprises in the vote was the performance of the Five Star Movement, the once anti-establishment party that was part of the coalitions that governed Italy for more than four years from 2018 until earlier this year.The party had been struggling because of internal divisions and lackluster showings in opinion polls. But after it prompted the collapse of Mr. Draghi’s government, it managed to gain 15 percent of the votes on Sunday, becoming the third-largest party, after Brothers of Italy and the center-left Democratic Party, which took 19 percent.Giuseppe Conte, the Five Star Movement’s leader and a former prime minister, campaigned largely on the citizens’ income, a subsidy for unemployed, low-income Italians that has split the electorate. Five Star introduced the program in 2019, and it has been very popular in Italy’s poorer south. But many of Ms. Meloni’s supporters are against the subsidy, and she has said in the past that she wants to abolish the program.Giuseppe Conte, leader of the Five Star Movement, speaking in Volturara Appula, Italy, this month. His party took 15 percent of the vote, a showing that surprised many.Franco Cautillo/EPA, via ShutterstockAt a news conference in the early hours of Monday, Mr. Conte spoke of his party’s “great comeback,” which he deemed “very significant.”The center-left was split, and suffered for it.The Democratic Party won 19 percent of the vote, losing support even in historical bastions of Italy’s left.After the defeat, Enrico Letta, the party’s leader, said, “Our opposition will be strong and intransigent.”Enrico Letta, leader of the Democratic Party, leaving a polling station in Rome on Sunday. He was accused of leading a campaign lacking in substance and based on fear of the right.Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via ShutterstockBut he also announced that he was not going to run for the party’s leadership next year. He has been accused of leading a campaign lacking in substance and based on fear of the right.The Democrats, for decades the largest party in the center-left, have failed to build durable alliances. In this election, as in previous ones, they were able to build a coalition only with smaller, pro-European, environmentalist and more extreme leftist parties. In recent years, some of the Democratic Party’s former leaders have broken away and founded their own parties, draining support.Governing the country with other political forces for the past 10 years, and in Mr. Draghi’s unity government, did not help the party, Mr. Letta said.Turnout hit a record low.Voters went to the polls in record-low numbers. Only 64 percent of eligible voters cast ballots on Sunday, nine percentage points lower than in 2018. In the southern region of Calabria, only 50 percent voted.“Italians are disillusioned with politics,” Giovanni Orsina, director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, said on a national news channel on Monday. “The largest party in Italy are those who didn’t vote. It’s a strong message.”A polling station in Rome on Saturday. Only 64 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the election.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe numbers are striking in a country that is used to relatively high turnout. Voter participation had hovered around 90 percent after World War II, but in the 1980s, the figure started falling. Still, the numbers from this election were especially low; in 2018, almost 73 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.The majority looks strong, and maybe even stable.The results will hand the right-wing coalition a strong majority in seats in both the lower house and in the Senate, allowing it to govern without much consent or support from the opposition, which is likely to be quite fractured.It was not immediately clear whether the coalition would have the overwhelming number of seats — a two-thirds majority — in Parliament that would allow it to change the Constitution and veer toward making Italy a presidential republic, a long-sought goal of the right. Analysts said that it was unlikely the coalition would surpass that threshold, however.The lower house of the Italian Parliament in July, when Mario Draghi resigned as prime minister. The right-wing coalition will have a majority in both that chamber and in the Senate.Remo Casilli/ReutersThe coalition partners also have substantial differences of opinion on domestic and foreign policy. Ms. Meloni has supported Ukraine and backed Mr. Draghi’s strong stance against Russia, while her coalition partners, such as Mr. Berlusconi, have signaled admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin and criticized sanctions against Moscow, saying they are damaging to the Italian economy. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      What You Need to Know About the Elections in Italy

      by

      The elections could produce the first government led by a woman and by a hard-right party with post-Fascist roots.ROME — Italians vote on Sunday for the first time in almost five years in national elections that will usher in a new, and polls predict, right-wing government that will face economic challenges, a deepening energy crisis, and questions about Italy’s hard line against Russia and its full-throated support for the European Union.The elections come after the national unity government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a darling of the European establishment who is widely credited with increasing Italy’s credibility and influence, collapsed amid a revolt in his coalition.The elections had been scheduled for February, but the premature collapse raised familiar questions about Italy’s stability and the popularity of the country’s far-right opposition, which had grown outside the unity government, and rekindled doubts about Italy’s commitment to the European Union.International markets, wary of the country’s enormous debt, are already jittery. And Italy’s support for sending arms to Ukraine, which has been influential within Europe, has emerged as a campaign issue, raising the prospect of a possible change of course that could alter the balance of power in Europe.Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, at a rally this month in Cagliari, Sardinia. Her party has a clear edge in opinion polls. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesWho is running?Despite the broad popularity of Mr. Draghi, a Eurocentric moderate, it is the populist-infused right, with a recent history of belligerence toward Europe, that has had a clear edge in the polls.Most popular of all has been the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni, whose support skyrocketed as it was the only major party to remain in the opposition. If she does as well as expected, she is poised to be Italy’s first female prime minister.Ms. Meloni is aligned with the anti-immigrant and hard-right League party, led by Matteo Salvini, and Forza Italia, the center-right party founded and still led by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.Italy’s election law favors parties that run in a coalition, and so the coalition on the right has an advantage over the fragmented left.The largest party on the left, the Democratic Party, is polling around 22 percent. But Ms. Meloni’s support has polled around 25 percent, and the right is expected to gain many more seats in Parliament, the basis upon which the government is composed.The once anti-establishment Five Star Movement cratered from its strong showing in 2018, when it had more than 30 percent of the vote. But after participating in three different governments spanning the political spectrum, it has lost its identity. Now headed by the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, it has opted to run alone. In recent weeks, its poll numbers have climbed up, thanks to support in the south, which is rewarding the party for passing, and now defending, a broad unemployment benefit.A centrist party called Azione, led by a former minister, Carlo Calenda, and backed by another former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, would claim a moral victory even if it only hit 6 or 7 percent.At the Brothers of Italy rally in Cagliari. Voters’ main concerns are energy prices, inflation, the cost of living, and Italy’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesWhat are the issues?While Ms. Meloni’s post-Fascist roots have attracted attention and prompted worries outside of Italy, few voters in Italy seem to care. The issues of the day are energy prices, inflation, the cost of living and Italy’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine.On the last issue, the conservative coalition is split. Ms. Meloni, in part to reassure an international audience that she is a credible and acceptable option, has been a consistent and outspoken supporter of Ukraine throughout the war. Even though she has been in the opposition, where she criticized coronavirus vaccine mandates, she has emerged as a key ally of Mr. Draghi on the question of arming Ukraine.Her coalition partners are less solid on the issue. Mr. Salvini, who has a long history of admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, even wearing shirts with the Russian’s face on them, has argued that the sanctions against Russia should be reconsidered.Mr. Berlusconi was once Mr. Putin’s best friend among leaders of Western Europe. He once named a bed after Mr. Putin and still argues that he could make peace.The conservative coalition has proposed cutting taxes on essential goods and energy, offering energy vouchers to workers, and renegotiating Italy’s European Union recovery funds to adjust for higher prices. It is also seeking to reinvest in nuclear energy, which Italy has not produced since the 1990s and banned in a 2011 referendum.Its leaders have proposed a deep flat tax and the elimination of unemployment benefits popular in the south — known here as the “citizens’ income.” The benefit, pushed through with much fanfare by the Five Star Movement in its first government, acts as a subsidy to the lowest-income earners.To drum up electoral support, hard-right parties have also tried to make illegal migration an issue, even though numbers are far below earlier years. They are also running to defend traditional parties from what Ms. Meloni has called gay “lobbies.”The right also wants to change the Constitution so that the president can be elected directly by voters — and not by Parliament, as is now the case.The center-left Democratic Party has argued to continue the hard line against Russia and has emphasized energy policies that focus on renewable sources, cutting costs for low and medium-income families, and installing regasification plants to increase natural gas supplies as Italy faces shortages from Russia. The party has advocated easing the path to citizenship for children of immigrants born in Italy, and wants to increase penalties for discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people. It also proposes introducing a minimum wage, cutting income taxes to raise net salaries, and paying teachers and health care workers better wages.The Five Star Movement is, like Mr. Salvini, dubious of a hard line against Russia and against the shipment of Italian weapons to help Ukraine. The Five Star Movement is proposing an energy recovery fund to tackle the price surge and investments in renewable energy. It is also calling for a ban on new drilling for fossil fuels.What happens after the vote?Exit polls should come out the night of the vote, but since voting places close at 11 p.m., no official results are expected to be declared until the next day, or even later. But even once the results are known, Italy will not have a new prime minister for weeks.The new members of Parliament will be confirmed and convened in Rome in the middle of October. They will then elect the speaker of the Senate and of the Lower House, and party leaders for each house.The president, Sergio Mattarella, will then begin consultations with the speakers of both houses and the parties’ representatives. The coalition that won the most votes will designate their candidate for premiership. If their candidate is able to win a majority in the newly elected Parliament, the president will appoint a potential prime minister to form a new government.Should Brothers of Italy win the most votes, as is expected, it would be difficult for its coalition parties to justify a prime minister other than Ms. Meloni. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Draghi Says He’ll Stay as Italy’s Prime Minister, if Parties Unite

      by

      Days after he tendered his resignation, the Italian leader offered a way out of political crisis. Now it depends on the parties to accept or reject it.ROME — Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, who offered to resign last week after a rebellion in his broad national unity government, challenged the country’s fractious parties on Wednesday to stick together for the good of the country as a condition of him staying on.“The only way forward, if we want to stay together, is to rebuild from the top this pact, with courage, altruism and credibility,” Mr. Draghi said in a speech to the Italian Senate, throwing down a gauntlet ahead of confidence votes in the upper and lower chambers of Parliament on Wednesday and Thursday that will determine the fate of his government, along with the stability of Italy and much of Europe at an especially tenuous time.Mr. Draghi, speaking to long applause but also to some heckling, said that the public outcries for the government to continue were “impossible to ignore.”“Italy is strong when it knows how to be united,” he said, calling the period a “miracle” for Italy, but adding that political motivations had “unfortunately” led parties to seek to distinguish themselves, weakening “the desire to move forward together.”That politicking has left Italy teetering on the brink of instability once again after a period of relative calm, progress and expanding influence under Mr. Draghi’s leadership, which has made Italy an essential part of Europe’s united front against Russia in response to its war in Ukraine and its efforts to rebuild its economies amid the pandemic.Now, much will depend on whether Italy’s political parties take up Mr. Draghi’s offer, especially the Five Star Movement, which set off the current crisis by withholding its support last week in a key vote on the government’s spending priorities.That rebellion prompted the offer to resign by Mr. Draghi. Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, rejected the resignation and asked Mr. Draghi to address Parliament, where confidence votes will force all of the parties to take responsibility for their decisions.Mr. Draghi told the Parliament on Wednesday that Five Star’s revolt signified “the end” of the pact of trust that had fueled his government, and that it was unacceptable. If one party could do it, anyone “could repeat it,” he warned, adding that ransom demands on the government to suit narrow political interests could become the norm.He said that because he was appointed as a caretaker prime minister and not directly elected, his legitimacy was contingent on “as ample support as possible.”Giuseppe Conte, the leader of the Five Star Movement, this month in Rome. Mr. Draghi told the Parliament on Wednesday that Five Star’s revolt signified “the end” of the pact of trust that had fueled his government, and that it was unacceptable.Massimo Percossi/EPA, via Shutterstock“Are you ready to rebuild this pact?” Mr. Draghi repeated several times, concluding that the answer to this question was owed not to him, but to the Italian people.If Mr. Draghi does not receive the support he asked for on Wednesday, he will resign for good, and many analysts believe that Mr. Mattarella will call for early elections, as soon as September.Mr. Draghi’s speech was an effort to avoid the chaos that such a crisis would most likely bring.On the one hand, he tried to remind Parliament, and the country, all that Italy had been able to achieve since he took power in February 2021 in a government crisis caused by the forced removal of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, now the leader of Five Star, which stirred the insurrection against Mr. Draghi. He repeated that the efficacy of the government, its ability to move fast and make quick decisions was rooted in a national unity that “was the best guarantee for a legitimate democracy.”Mr. Draghi said that unity had allowed Italy to get out of the worst phase of the pandemic, funnel financial assistance quickly to those who needed it, cut “useless bureaucracy” that slowed the country, and aided the growth of the economy in a deeply challenging time.He listed key overhauls in a variety of sectors, including increased energy independence from Russia, which he called “essential for the modernization of Italy,” and noted that Italy had already received 45.9 billion euros (about $47 billion) from the European Commission in recovery funds, with €21 billion more on the way. “If we can’t show that we can spend this money well,” he said, Italy would not receive more.Mr. Draghi also attributed Italy’s greater footprint in Europe, and its strong position backing Ukraine with arms and condemning Russian aggression, to the period of political unity.“The merit of these accomplishments was yours,” he told Parliament, adding to long applause, “I have never been as proud to be an Italian as I have been in these moments.”But many analysts believe that they are actually creditable to Mr. Draghi and his reputation as a senior European statesman who saved the euro as the president of the European Central Bank. Without him, they say, the period of stability, and potentially Italy’s support for Ukraine and relevance in Europe, would be imperiled.The Italian government held a confidence vote on Wednesday in the Senate. If Mr. Draghi does not receive the support he asked for, he will resign for good, and many analysts believe that President Sergio Mattarella will call for early elections.Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Draghi’s willingness to step back, at least momentarily, from the breach overcame the day’s first hurdle for Italians hoping that the current government will continue. But the Senate had five hours of dramatic debate ahead of it, and no one was quite sure what any of the parties would do as they all weighed their personal interests.Five Star, riddled with warring factions, was in a particularly delicate situation, as a decision to back or bolt from the government both seemed likely to splinter the movement and cause defections.It was also unclear if Mr. Draghi would continue or resign without the support of Five Star if many of its members left to support him. Another confidence vote is scheduled for Thursday in the Lower House of Parliament, where more Five Star defections are likely.“What was supposed to be Conte’s vengeance against Draghi became the self-sinking of the former prime minister, whose political limitations have emerged,” wrote Stefano Folli, a political commentator with La Repubblica. “However it ends,” Mr. Folli added, “Five Star is doomed to a marginal role.”As the Senate began its debate on Wednesday, no one was sure what would happen.“It’s all uncertain,” said Giovanni Orsina, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli, a university in Rome. “We’ll need to see whether the parties want to play along and still support him.”Mr. Draghi, left, visited Irpin, Ukraine, in June with other European leaders, like President Emmanuel Macron of France.Viacheslav Ratynskyi/ReutersMany of the parties were concerned about an upcoming budget bill, which Mr. Draghi also emphasized in his speech, but there were also excruciating political calculations for each of the individual parties.Five Star, which won 33 percent of the vote in 2018 and is, as a result, still the largest party in the government, has since cratered. It has dreaded elections for years, but as the country’s next scheduled elections approach in early 2023, the downside of early elections has decreased.Still, the party, which has lost about two-thirds of its national support, would stand to be decimated at the ballot box. Mr. Conte’s decision to take a stand last week was widely seen as an effort to regain some of the party’s long lost anti-establishment identity. Instead, it seems to have backfired.Mr. Draghi on Wednesday made it clear that his government would not cave in to Five Star’s demands. He held firm on military support for Ukraine, which Five Star opposes, and for the building of new gas facilities to give Italy energy independence from Russia as a matter of national security, something Five Star has also opposed.He said that Italy’s universal income benefit for its poorest citizens, Five Star’s trademark achievement, was a positive development, but that it needed to be improved so that it actually helped those who needed it and did not become an incentive not to work. For now, it is loathed by the business sector and considered by many to be a drag on employment.Matteo Salvini, center, the leader the League party, on Wednesday in the Senate. The right-wing coalition of which the League is part, with Forza Italia and the hard-right Brothers of Italy, is currently leading in polls.Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via ShutterstockThat hard line was met by heckling and disapproval from parts of the chamber.The center-left Democratic Party, which is most supportive of Mr. Draghi, was also in a difficult position because it was counting on an alliance with Five Star, or what is left of it, to bolster its own electoral fortunes in the next elections. But now an alliance with Five Star — the party that prematurely ended the Draghi era — was itself laden with danger, and fractures had emerged in the left over its wisdom.The right-wing coalition of the League party, led by the nationalist Matteo Salvini; Forza Italia, led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; and the hard-right Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, was currently leading in polls, though it was not clear how eager they were to govern at such a delicate time.Mr. Salvini and Mr. Berlusconi have vowed to no longer sit in the same government with Five Star, but they also do not want to risk their credibility — especially with a business community that likes Mr. Draghi — by being seen as the ones who brought down the government. Italy’s political observers were paying especially close attention to what Mr. Salvini would do.In his speech, Mr. Draghi mentioned as part of his government’s program the priorities of powerful League governors in the country’s north who want the prime minister to stay on, potentially driving a wedge between them and Mr. Salvini were he to consider bolting.“Politically, Italians do not love the parties who rip up the government and lead them to elections,” Mr. Orsina said. But a main member of the alliance, Ms. Meloni has skyrocketed in the polls as she stayed in the opposition, and wants elections as soon as possible. More

    • 100 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Italy’s Unity Government Nears Collapse After Confidence Vote

      by

      A confidence vote showed potentially fatal fractures in Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s grand coalition, as the anti-establishment Five Star Movement withheld support and set off a political crisis.ROME — The broad national unity government led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, which has expanded Italy’s influence in Europe, guided it through a successful vaccination campaign and injected competence and confidence into the country, suddenly neared collapse on Thursday as it faced a rebellion from the remnants of Italy’s recent anti-establishment past.The revolt by the mostly imploded Five Star Movement, led by Mr. Draghi’s predecessor as prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, threatened to usher in the end of a period of political stability for Italy and thrust the country back into the familiar political turmoil that has paralyzed it for decades.Mr. Draghi had opted for the confidence vote early Thursday in an effort to call Mr. Conte’s bluff as he threatened to break with the government over a relief bill for soaring energy costs and new investments, which Five Star found inadequate. It turned out that, this time, Mr. Conte, who has made repeated threats to break with the government, was not bluffing. His party withheld its support in the confidence vote, but it was not immediately clear whether it would remain a part of the government.Though the government survived — by 172 to 39 — Mr. Draghi had made clear that he would not lead a unity government that had no unity. He is now expected to meet with the country’s president, Sergio Mattarella, to discuss next steps.Mr. Mattarella may ask Mr. Draghi to present a new political program to Parliament next week, or form a new government with a simple cabinet shuffle.Mr. Draghi could also choose to resign, forcing the president to ask a different person to try to form a new government or call for early elections.Five Star, whose support crumbled after a chaotic spell running the government and Mr. Draghi’s succession, would most likely suffer terribly in such elections, and many of its members of Parliament, who are loath to lose their paychecks and pensions, would be out of a job.But as the 2023 deadline for elections draws nearer, Five Star also has less to lose, and Mr. Draghi’s government is likely to face more internecine fighting and instability. So it is not entirely surprising that the threat came from Mr. Conte.Giuseppe Conte, a former prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement, last week. He has made a habit of issuing ultimatums to the government.Massimo Percossi/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Conte, a lawyer plucked from obscurity by Five Star and the League to lead the government in 2018, has struggled to find his footing as a political leader of what is left of Five Star.He is still bitter, members of Parliament say, over being pushed out as prime minister in 2021, when he was replaced by Mr. Draghi, and he is desperate to rebuild a party that has wasted away, hemorrhaging half of its support.The Five Star leader who brought him in as prime minister — Luigi Di Maio, the current foreign minister — quit the party last month, taking dozens of members with him. Mr. Di Maio, a onetime firebrand, now follows in Mr. Draghi’s footsteps and speaks about the importance of NATO, clearly seeing his future in the establishment.Mr. Conte instead has struggled to signal to his unsatisfied supporters that he can deliver on their interests. But he speaks in legalistic terms, is often inconsistent and has the added headache of constantly trying to appease the party’s often inscrutable founder, Beppe Grillo.Mr. Conte has made a habit of issuing ultimatums to the government. Usually he falls in line. But this time, he did not.“The scenario has changed, we need a different phase,” Mr. Conte told reporters after failing to reach a compromise during talks with Mr. Draghi on Wednesday. “We are ready to support the government but not to sign a blank bill. Whoever accuses us of irresponsibility needs to look in their own backyard.”Among Mr. Conte’s objections to the spending priorities, he has argued that the government has not set aside enough funds for a cost of living package. Five Star — which is traditionally close to Russia and admiring of its president, Vladimir V. Putin — has also opposed sending significant military support to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion, something Mr. Draghi strongly supports.The potential departure of Mr. Draghi opens the door to forces who are much more sympathetic to Mr. Putin, and as a result risks fracturing Europe’s united front on issues such as sanctions and refusing Russian energy.Mr. Conte, reflecting Five Star’s environmentalist roots, has also vehemently opposed using government money to build a garbage incinerator to alleviate Rome’s devastating trash problems.Mr. Conte set off the spark that brought down the government, and even the parties that have been most solidly behind Mr. Draghi did not want to get caught in the conflagration.Enrico Letta, the leader of the center-left Democratic Party, which has drastically climbed in the polls as Five Star has plummeted, applied pressure on Five Star at a party meeting when he said he would be unwilling to form a new government without them. He added that early elections were preferable if the broad coalition fell apart.Mr. Conte’s former ally, Matteo Salvini of the nationalist League party, said he, too, might pull his support from the coalition government and push for early elections if Five Star left.“If a coalition party doesn’t back a government decree that’s it, enough is enough,” Mr. Salvini said on Italian television. “It seems clear that we should go to elections.”Even so, his support has declined, while backing has increased for the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni. Her party would be the greatest beneficiary of early elections, which she supports.The earliest time for that election would be autumn, which would disturb the usual drafting of Italy’s budget and create the unlikely event of Italian politicians campaigning in the summer.Gaia Pianigiani More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Mario Draghi Is Asked to Form Government in Italy

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMario Draghi Gets Nod to Form New Government and Guide Italy Out of CrisisThe sudden ascent of the man credited with helping save the euro was a pipe dream for Italians frustrated with a coalition paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence.Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level. Credit…Andrew Medichini/Associated PressFeb. 3, 2021Updated 8:43 a.m. ETROME — Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is largely credited with helping to save the euro, accepted a mandate from Italy’s president on Wednesday to try and form a new unity government that would guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.“To overcome the pandemic, to complete the vaccine campaign, to offer answers to the daily problems of the citizens, to relaunch the country are the challenges we face,” Mr. Draghi said after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella for more than an hour at the Quirinal Palace. Italy, he said, faced a “difficult moment.” And he said he had accepted Mr. Mattarella’s appeal because the emergency “requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation.”Until as recently as Tuesday, the idea of Mr. Draghi replacing Giuseppe Conte as prime minister remained a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with a governing coalition that seemed paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence, especially as the coronavirus pandemic raged and economic devastation set in.But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi and appealed to “all the political forces in the Parliament” to support a “high profile government” to meet the historic moment.He made it clear Mr. Conte’s tenure was over and the new players, potentially political leaders proposed by the parties supporting Mr. Draghi or an all-star cast of politically unaffiliated economists, judges and scientists, was ready to take the stage.Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news that Mr. Draghi had been lined up to lead the Italian government. He immediately began consultations with party leaders that will continue in the coming days in an effort to form a new Italian government.“I am confident that from the exchange with the parties and the groups in the Parliament and from the dialogue with the social forces,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday, “there will emerge unity and the capacity to give a responsible answer to the president’s appeal.”Mr. Draghi is himself no political novice. He has served in past Italian governments, was a director of Italy’s treasury and knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level.His name has been mentioned for years as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Mattarella as Italy’s head of state in 2022. But now Mr. Mattarella himself has called on Mr. Draghi, whom he has publicly praised in the past, and brought him directly into the fray.“Now everyone of good will must heed the call of President Mattarella and support the government of Mario Draghi,” Matteo Renzi, the wily former prime minister who engineered the collapse of Mr. Conte’s government by pulling his small party’s support in Parliament. “Now is the time for sobriety.”A former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, triggered the previous government’s collapse.Credit…Pool photo by Alessandro SerranoParty leaders on the right and left quickly expressed support for Mr. Draghi after it became clear that Mr. Mattarella would ask him to form a government.Among them were leaders who had made great shows of their loyalty to Mr. Conte. Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party that Mr. Renzi once led, released a statement that on the one hand referred to the government crisis as a “disaster provoked by the irresponsible choice” of Mr. Renzi, but he then welcomed Mr. Mattarella’s decision. “We will stand ready to discuss the common good for the country.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Giuseppe Conte to Resign as Italian Prime Minister

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine InformationTimelineWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyItaly’s Prime Minister to Quit, Adding Political Chaos to PandemicPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government is likely to collapse, leaving Italy in an uncertain political situation with Covid-19 infections still very high.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, center, addressing the Senate in Rome on Tuesday.Credit…Alessandro Di Meo/EPA, via ShutterstockJason Horowitz, Gaia Pianigiani and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 5:15 p.m. ETPrime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy will offer his resignation on Tuesday, his office said on Monday evening, likely leading to the collapse of Italy’s teetering government and plunging the country deeper into political chaos as it faces a still serious coronavirus epidemic and a halting vaccine rollout.Mr. Conte’s resignation will put Italy back in the familiar situation of government instability, but in extraordinary times, with tens of millions of Italians struggling to stay healthy and get by under pandemic restrictions and a deep, global recession. The coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 Italians, one of the world’s highest death tolls. The government, which was making slow but steady progress in vaccinating public health workers, has hit a speed bump and threatened to sue Pfizer for a shortfall in vaccine doses.What will happen after Mr. Conte offers his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella remains unclear. Mr. Conte could remain in charge, heading a new governing coalition with a different lineup of parties, but the possibilities also include a more thorough reorganization under a different prime minister, or even elections to choose a new Parliament.Mr. Conte, who is serving his second consecutive stint as Prime Minister — first as the head of an alliance of right-wing nationalists and populists, and then as the leader of a coalition of populists and the center-left establishment — desperately wants to stay in power.But last week, Matteo Renzi, a wily former prime minister and critic of Mr. Conte, unexpectedly pulled his small center-left party out of the government, depriving it of majority support in the Senate. Mr. Conte, who leads a coalition of the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, has been unable to attract enough new support in Parliament to replace the votes Mr. Renzi took away.Mr. Renzi said he withdrew from the coalition to protest Mr. Conte’s management of the epidemic, his lack of vision in deciding where to allocate hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds that Italy is set to receive from the European Union, and his undemocratic methods in icing out Parliament by relying on unelected task forces.A food distribution site in Milan earlier this month. The pandemic has devastated Italy’s economy.Credit…Alessandro Grassani for The New York TimesBut many here instead saw Mr. Renzi as performing a complicated political maneuver designed to take revenge on his enemies and gain more influence in the government, perhaps even in a third consecutive government led by Mr. Conte.Mr. Mattarella, the Italian president, is imbued with extraordinary powers during a government crisis and has several options for resolving the crisis.He could, in theory, ask the current coalition to continue, but it is seen as all but certain that he will accept that the government has collapsed. He could task Mr. Conte with forming a new government, which would essentially require the support, and appeasement, of Mr. Renzi’s party, with or without him. That would lead to what was in essence a glorified cabinet reshuffle.On Monday night, a third Conte government seemed, at least publicly, to be the governing coalition’s first choice.Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party, which Mr. Renzi once led, said in a Twitter post Monday evening that he was “with Conte for a new government.” The Coronavirus Outbreak More