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Romano Prodi had become more than just another Christian democrat in the long list of Italian post-war prime ministers. In 28 months his Olive-coalition (center-left) had led his country from an almost hopeless financial situation to become a fully respected partner in European Currency Union. Then a coalition crisis caused by the Communists and a negative confidence vote in parliament forced him to step down. Unwilling to face new elections, the major government forces proposed an enlargement of their coalition to forces of the right center, excluding at the same time the most unreliable part of the Communist Party. New prime minister Massimo D'Alema is the first ex-communist leader to govern in a Western European country.
Finally there seemed to be an Italian prime minister to last. European leaders had learned to value his reliability in the Euro-process and citizens in the partner countries started to remember his name. "Are you still there, Romano ?" the eternal chancellor Helmut Kohl used to joke, who surely never would have thought, that their destinies could be in some way connected. But only two weeks after Kohl's electoral defeat in Germany, Prodi lost his majority in parliament and was forced to step down by just one vote missing. His government reached the second position for durability in Italian post-war history, beaten only by socialist leader Bettino Craxi's first cabinet, which resisted for almost three years between 1983 and 1986.
Under Prodi's leadership Italy seemed finally on the way to regain its political dignity. After years of corruption scandals ("Tangentopoli") that destroyed the rest of the already small reputation of Italian parties, the Prodi-experience appeared as the beginning of a new and more honest relationship between citizens and parties. In fact, Prodi had taken office with a clear mandate given to him and his Olive-coalition (L'Ulivo) by voters in the 1996 elections. The only problem was the fact that the winning center-left-coalition lacked a clear majority in one of the two chambers of parliament, which led to the necessity of asking the Communist Party lead by Fausto Bertinotti to lend their support. Another handicap of Prodi's government was, that when he started his experience in 1996 not a single party leader of his coalition wanted to join his cabinet. This is quite normal in Italian politics, because nobody can ever say how long a cabinet will resist and therefore in Italy party leaders generally enjoy a greater prestige than ministers. Thus Massimo D'Alema, leader of the Left Democrats (Democratici di Sinistra, DS) - a party which abandoned communism in 1991 and is now the biggest party in the government coalition - preferred to engage himself in constitutional reforms and party unification. Both projects, however, were failures, mainly because of the resistance of minor parties against any reform that could diminish their power.
The copyright of the article Italian Government Crisis: Revenge of the Dwarves in European Politics is owned by Peter Weber. Permission to republish Italian Government Crisis: Revenge of the Dwarves in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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