Italian Government: Another One Bites the Dust
© Peter Weber
With the resignation of Massimo D'Alema the Italian Republic has used up its 57th government since 1945, the third in the current legislation period. Used up is even the prime minister whose nine-party coalition has been quarrelling without a pause for over a year. Now D'Alema has stepped down after the negative results of his center-left coalition in regional elections. The opposition "Freedom-Pool" led by media-tycoon Silvio Berlusconi won in eight of fifteen regions. Berlusconi´s alliance with his former rival Umberto Bossi of the Northern League has worked particularly well in the productive north asking for devolution in favor of the regions. A week after D'Alema's resignation the center-left coalition agreed on the previous treasury minister Giuliano Amato to lead the new government. Due to massive party interference the new prime minister, a Socialist, has presented only a poor cabinet and program. Clinging to power, the party leaders of the center-left coalition don't seem to have the slightest clue on how to prepare for the general elections early next year. But a series of referendums due this month could bring significant change.
Italy in turmoil, again
While all around in Southern Europe, from Spain to Greece, national governments have been confirmed by voters after presenting a brilliant record, in Italy things are still going in a different manner: four years after victory in parliamentary elections the governing center-left coalition is again in a mess. So what went wrong for the Italian left ? Due to the Economist, "the main cause of its defeat was a sense that the left-wing coalition, whose make-up has chopped and changed over the past few years and now contains some 11 parties, is a bunch of ambitious bickerers constantly at odds with itself, and that Mr D'Alema, who heads the biggest party on the left, the ex-communist Democrats of the Left, is a sour, carping sort of fellow - in contrast to the jovial, slick, can-do billionaire, Mr Berlusconi, who proved, once again, to be master of the image, as he sailed up and down the country´s coastline with much razzmatazz in a pleasure cruiser".
Waiting for constitutional reform
"Mr D'Alema had never led the combined left in a national election; he was picked by parliament to succeed Mr Prodi as prime minister in 1998. He had hoped that a good result in the regional polls would legitimise him as a national leader. In the event, it did the opposite".
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