For almost a year-and-a-half, Italy’s politics has been characterised by a highly unusual degree of stability and consensus. During Mario Draghi’s premiership, the country has come through the worst of the Covid pandemic and successfully laid claim to a large tranche of recovery fund money from the EU. Much of the credit for this has rightly gone to the former European Central Bank chief, who was parachuted into the role of prime minister to bring order to chaos, following the ignominious collapse of the previous government.
This period of calm, which has been highly popular with voters, was always to be time-limited. Mr Draghi has presided with skill over a broad-based national unity government created to deal with an emergency; but although he is not the first unelected economist to run the country, Italy is a democracy not a technocracy. Normal politics was due to resume via elections next spring. But that timetable now risks being unhelpfully accelerated, following the decision by the Five Star Movement to boycott a confidence vote last week. Mr Draghi promptly resigned, only to be talked out of doing so immediately by President Sergio Mattarella. But depending on the outcome of fraught negotiations, he may decide to go this week.
