Draghi is not Italy’s president and that’s really a good thing

Mario Draghi remains Italy’s prime minister. The country’s parliamentarians — in a secretive, conclave-like vote — decided against making him president, instead backing a second term for outgoing head of state Sergio Mattarella. While it may be a personal blow for Draghi, who was known to hanker after the role even if he did not openly campaign for the job, it’s good news for Italy and Europe.
Mattarella’s agreement to put off his retirement keeps Draghi at the helm of government. The pair have overseen a rare, nearly year-long period of unity and effective government and they will remain in office at least till the end of the legislature in spring 2023. That is a welcome guarantee of political stability and crucial for Italy and Europe. The country is receiving the biggest chunk of the bloc’s post-pandemic funds, which need to be spent well to boost overall European growth.
Nevertheless, the six days of chaos and procedural impasse underscored the ungovernability just below the surface of the eurozone’s third largest economy. At moments, several compromises were proposed that would have put a figure more closely associated with the far right in the presidential palace. Indeed, more than a dozen presidential candidates were mooted but none received enough votes or support. The fact that Mattarella, 80, agreed to stay on is comforting: Italy still has civil servants to keep chaos at bay. Draghi remains in charge of the government, but a political reckoning with the far right is yet to come.
The country’s near stagnant growth for more than two decades has been a brake on the economy of the entire EU. But in his 11 months as prime minister, the former boss of the European Central Bank has turned around the image of Italy in inevitable decline. Its estimated gross domestic product growth last year was 6.4%; in contrast, Germany’s is just 2.7%. While there are several reasons for the disparity, it is a sign that Italy’s economy is starting to outperform.
The status quo — and its extension — got a boost with Mattarella’s margin of victory in the eighth and final round of voting: he won a landslide 759 votes, far above the required minimum of 505. That mandate will give him clout to push through reforms in the legislature’s remaining tenure. Some have already been made but more are necessary to boost growth and to ensure that EU funds continue to flow. Some of Draghi’s supporters hope that he may yet get another chance at ascending to the presidency in a year or so, should Mattarella decide not to serve his entire second term. But in Italian politics, that is a lifetime away.
Having missed out on the presidency may tarnish Draghi’s authority — but only briefly. He can take advantage of the disarray on the Italian right. Recent polls have suggested that if Italy went to a national election today, the right would take the most seats in parliament. However, the presidential conclave saw the failure of the three major right-wing parties — Matteo Salvini’s right wing League, Giorgia Meloni’s hard right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s centrist Forza Italia — to get their lawmakers to back a common candidate. Salvini sounded petulant speaking to reporters on Saturday, complaining he had held “18 meetings and made 22 proposals” for president “and not one of them got supported.”
Getting the cross-party, unity government back together is going to be Draghi’s first challenge. But he now has more time to maneuver against the ascendant but fractured right.
It was a century ago this year that Italy’s elite failed to hear the tam-tam of popular discontent that allowed Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to seize power. Italy doesn’t risk a coup d’etat nowadays, but it would be a disaster for Italy and for Europe if the lessons of history went unheeded. Economic growth and greater cohesion is the best way to dull populist momentum. Draghi — as prime minister, not president — is in the best place to make that happen.

—Bloomberg

Rachel Sanderson was Milan
correspondent for the Financial Times from 2010 to 2020. She has also written about Italy for the Economist and reported for Reuters and Reuters TV from Rome, Paris and London