The World Ahead 2022
Will Mario Draghi run to be Italy’s president?
Or will he remain as prime minister?
ITALY WILL hold at least one important election in 2022—and perhaps two. The unavoidable one is for a president to succeed Sergio Mattarella, whose term expires on February 2nd. An Italian president spends much of his time cutting ribbons, presenting awards and making platitudinous speeches. But he (Italy has never had a female president) also wields formidable powers. It is the president who dissolves parliament and appoints the prime minister. And Mario Draghi, the current prime minister (pictured), is said by associates to want the job.
A lot of Italians would like him to remain in the one he already has. Italy faces the daunting task of spending, not only wisely but speedily, more than €200bn ($232bn) from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery funds. Who better to oversee the process than Mr Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank?
Since coming into office in February 2021 as the leader of an improbably heterogeneous coalition, stretching from the radical left to the populist right, the supremely undemonstrative yet plain-speaking Mr Draghi has made himself Italy’s most popular politician.
A lot of Italians would like Mr Draghi to stay in his current job
At the forefront of those arguing for him to stay has been Enrico Letta. A former prime minister, Mr Letta returned from voluntary exile to assume the leadership of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) shortly after the current government took office. If Mr Draghi were to stay until the next general election, which has to be held by March 2023, it would not only keep a steady hand at the helm for longer, it would also give Mr Letta more time to revive his party’s fortunes. The PD was at just 17% in the polls when he took on the leadership. But in local elections in October 2021, the centre-left’s candidates for mayor won in most of Italy’s biggest cities.
Until then, the loudest voices calling for Mr Draghi’s elevation had come from the right: from Matteo Salvini of the populist Northern League and (ironically since her party is in opposition) from Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Brothers of Italy movement. But their sponsorship came with a condition: that Mr Draghi’s accession should lead to an early election.
Polling a combined 40%, the right was confident of victory and, with a contribution from Silvio Berlusconi’s once-mighty Forza Italia party, an overall parliamentary majority. Even if Mr Draghi does stay on as prime minister, it is quite possible, given Italian politicians’ aversion to winter campaigning, that a general election will be engineered anyway for the autumn.
John Hooper: Italy and Vatican correspondent, The Economist, Rome■
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline “Draghi’s choice”