Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella dissolved parliament yesterday, triggering early elections which could bring the hard right to power after the country’s warring parties toppled Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
Elections will take place on September 25, a government source told AFP, while the internationally-respected Draghi will stay on as head of government until then.
It will be the first autumn national election for more than a century in Italy, where the second half of the year is normally taken up with getting the budget law through parliament.
Although the vote is set for the end of September, it might take weeks of haggling before a new administration is sworn in.
Dissolving parliament was always a last resort, Mattarella said, but in this case a lack of consensus among the parties that had made up Draghi’s national unity government made it “inevitable”.
Italy was facing major challenges, however, that could not be put on the backburner while the parties campaigned, he said.
There could be no “pauses in the essential interventions to combat the effects of the economic and social crisis and in particular the rise in inflation”.
Based on current polls, a rightist alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party would comfortably win a snap vote.
“No more excuses,” tweeted Meloni, 45, who vociferously led the opposition throughout Draghi’s term and has long called for fresh elections.
Draghi, Italy’s sixth prime minister in a decade, drew warm applause from lawmakers when he made a brief appearance in the lower house of parliament yesterday, signalling his intention to step down.
“Even central bankers have their hearts touched sometimes,” he quipped as he received the ovation.
A former European Central Bank (ECB) chief, Draghi was parachuted into the premiership in 2021 as Italy wrestled with a pandemic and ailing economy.
On Wednesday, he attempted to save the government, urging his squabbling coalition to put aside their grievances for the sake of the country.
However, three parties – Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia, Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigrant League and the populist Five-Star Movement (M5S) – said that it was no longer possible for them to work together.
French President Emmanuel Macron, deprived of a major ally in Europe, hailed Draghi as a great Italian statesman and saluted his “unfailing commitment to reforming his country”.
Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Draghi, who took an uncompromising stance against Russia and played a key role within the EU in backing Kyiv’s bid for membership in the bloc, for his “unwavering support”.
The stunned centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which had supported Draghi, said that its hopes were now pinned on Italians being “wiser than their MPs”.
Italy’s latest crisis was sparked when M5S snubbed a key vote last week, despite warnings from Draghi that it would fatally undermine the coalition.
“Enough with Five-Star craziness and PD power plays: Italians now get to choose,” anti-immigrant Salvini tweeted yesterday.
Though M5S triggered the crisis, it was Salvini who pushed Draghi under the metaphorical bus, political commentators said.
The former interior minister, who has been losing voters to Meloni, “saw an opportunity to regain his primacy, in the centre-right and within the League”, editorialist Marco Damilano wrote in the Domani daily.
Draghi’s downfall comes despite recent polls suggesting most Italians wanted him to stay at the helm until the scheduled general election next May.
Anxious investors were watching closely as the coalition imploded.
Supporters of Draghi had warned a government collapse could worsen social ills in a period of rampant inflation, delay the budget, threaten EU post-pandemic recovery funds and send jittery markets into a tailspin.
The Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-fascist roots, is leading in the polls, with 23.9% of voter intentions, according to a SWG survey held three days before Draghi’s resignation.
To win a majority it would need the support of the League (polling at 14%) and Forza Italia (7.4%).
The PD is just behind Brothers of Italy, with 22.1%, but may be forced to ally with the troubled M5S (polling at 11.2%), if it is to have a chance at beating the right.
Draghi acknowledges applause upon his arrival at parliament in Rome. Also seen is Foreign Minister Luigi de Maio.
