Italy’s national-unity government at the start of 2022: a coalition with an uncertain future

Abstract

As we were going to press at the beginning of 2022, Italy’s governing coalition was showing signs of growing fragility. For one thing, the 2022 Finance Law had been greeted by widespread disappointment, including strike action by two of the three main tradeunion confederations, thanks to perceptions that it had largely failed to take the opportunity to get to grips with the growing inequality provoked by the pandemic. Tax reductions had seemed to involve greater benefits for those on middle and higher incomes than for those on lower incomes. The League, Forza Italia (FI), and Italia Viva (IV) had blocked a proposal – aimed at mobilizing the resources needed to help less welloff families cope with rising energy bills – to freeze the tax reliefs on incomes above €75,000. The plastic tax and the sugar tax, designed, respectively, to combat environmental pollution and obesity, had been postponed until 2023. The legislation was not presented to the Chamber of Deputies until the very last minute, to the detriment of the legislature’s capacity to properly scrutinize the proposals. Second, the Government was perceived in some quarters (e.g. Tundo 2021) to have reacted too slowly and with insufficient decisiveness to the arrival of the Omicron variant. Its decision – apparently the fruit of a classic compromise between diametrically opposed positions – to make Covid vaccinations obligatory, but only for the over-50s, and to limit the penalty for noncompliance to fines of €100, provoked satirical reactions from some. Finally, Prime Minister Mario Draghi was criticized by journalists for failing to hold a press conference to explain the new anti-Covid measures, leaving the task to the ministers for the civil service and public health, Renato Brunetta and Roberto Speranza, respectively. When, on 10 January, Draghi relented and appeared before journalists, he began by saying that he would not answer any questions concerning the forthcoming presidential elections – drawing the further criticism that his attitude betrayed a certain contempt for the role of the media in holding public office-holders to account in a democracy. So it was perhaps not surprising that early January polling suggested that the previously buoyant publicapproval ratings for both Draghi and the Government were now in clear decline. Against this background, it seemed more than likely that the outcome of the presidential elections, due to begin on 24 January, would be decisive for the future of the governing coalition. As readers familiar with Italian politics will know, presidents of the Republic are elected for 7-year terms by the members of the legislature (Deputies and Senators) and three representatives from each of the 20 regions with the exception of the small Valle d’Aosta that sends one representative. Election is by secret ballot without any formal nomination process, and requires a majority of two-thirds of the assembly at the first three ballots, after which an absolute majority suffices. President Sergio Mattarella’s term of office was due to expire on 3 February. The fundamental reason why election of his CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN POLITICS 2022, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2030895