Two months after an inconclusive general election, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has asked Enrico Letta, deputy leader of the centre-left Democratic Party to form a government. Letta is considered to be a bridge builder with good links to the centre-right and a moderate centrist who can actually keep a left-right ‘grand coalition’ government together.
Letta, a former Christian Democrat, has been his party’s main bridge to Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right
Pier Luigi Bersani, the uncharismatic and ineffectual leader of the Democratic Party, was sidelined for the post after he failed to secure a coalition pact and a deal on a new President, and has since resigned the leadership of the party.
Letta, a pro-European and a former Christian Democrat, comes from the moderate Catholic wing of the Democratic Party, and has been his party’s main bridge to Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right. He served as Cabinet Secretary in Romano Prodi’s centre-left government from 2006 to 2008, ironically a post his uncle Gianni Letta held in the Berlusconi government that followed.
A former MEP (2004-2006) where he sat with the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, he served as Europe Minister under Massimo D’Alema’s centre-left government in 1998 (where he became the youngest minister in Italy’s history aged 32) and was appointed Minister for Industry a year later.
He is the secretary-general of Arel, a think-tank founded in 1976 by Nino Andreatta, a Christian Democrat economist, and is a member of the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organisation based in Washington DC.
Should a new coalition government be formed and be approved in Parliament, it will have to respond to the political earthquake that followed the last election. Italians want a change from the old way of doing politics – the fact that Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement got 25 per cent of the vote is proof of this – they want less political costs (such as the exaggerated salaries and allowances for MPs and too many layers of government), radical electoral reform and a government that focuses on job creation and economic growth.
The new government must also be prepared to implement certain reforms within a short period of time and then call a fresh general election. It is obvious that such a ‘grand coalition’ cannot last very long but it has an opportunity to implement some changes before going to the polls again.
Shortly after meeting President Napolitano on Tuesday, Mr Letta told the media: “Without the reform of politics, there is no way out of the crisis”. He also pointed out that there was a “need to make the EU change its line as, up to now, it has not given sufficient answers to Europe’s economic crisis”. Letta said the number of Italy’s MPs should be reduced, Parliament’s two-chamber system and the administrative structure of the country’s provinces reviewed and changes made to the electoral system.
Napolitano’s choice of Letta – who still has to form a government and seek parliamentary approval for it – came shortly after his own re-election as President.
Napolitano, aged 87, has shown himself capable of mediating between Italy’s different political parties and the large majority that voted for him in Parliament is proof of the wide support he enjoys across the political spectrum.
While Napolitano’s re-election is certainly good news, the fact that the parties had to urge him to run again – because they could not agree on who should succeed him – does not augur well for future co-operation between the parties, but we will have to see how this works out. Furthermore, the centre-left Democratic Party put forward two candidates for President but failed to elect either of them because of internal divisions.
Hopefully Letta will be able to keep his party united; he is bound to have a difficult job persuading the left-wing factions to support a government with the centre-right.
It is important, though, that the centre-right and centre-left do co-operate, at least until a few important reforms are passed. We can expect no such co-operation from Grillo and his Five Star Movement, which has taken its ‘anti-establishment’ position and populism to exaggerated heights.
Grillo has said no to everything and even ridiculously declared the re-election of Napolitano to be a “constitutional coup”. I hope the electorate will punish Grillo at the next election for his excessive negative attitude.
Strangely enough, Berlusconi seems to gaining from the current political situation.
He supported the re-election of President Napolitano, who comes from the centre-left, and therefore gained some credibility, and has watched as the Democratic Party lost its leader and was driven by internal divisions.
His centre-right People of Freedom party is now ahead in the polls, which is not good news as Berlusconi, besides facing a number of criminal charges, did not deliver much economic or political reform when in office.
Italy urgently needs a new stable government which can bring about both political and economic change. The eurozone’s third largest economy is in deep recession and unemployment is high. It is in Europe’s interest for Italy to get out of its crisis and hopefully Letta will be able to keep a grand coalition government together for a while.
Letta needs to carry on with the broad economic reforms of the outgoing Monti government, perhaps with more of an emphasis on economic growth, as well as implement genuine political and electoral reform.
Following his meeting with Napolitano, Letta remarked: “European policies are too focused on austerity which is no longer enough.” He may have a point, but the challenge, of course, is to maintain a balance between financial sustainability and encouraging economic growth.
He will have a difficult balancing act made even more complicated by the different views of the various parties in his coalition.