What Mattarella will (not) do
The role of Mattarella in the crisis of the Conte government
If Conte, having received the confidence of the Chamber, will also succeed in obtaining that of the Senate, perhaps without reaching and exceeding the absolute majority as in Montecitorio, the crisis could be considered avoided, at least on paper. And Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale, as the newspapers anticipated, would probably make the best of the bad game of an overall "fragile" or "weak" majority, according to the headlines of Repubblica and Il Messaggero , hoping with Conte and his supporters that the votes eventually missed at Palazzo Madama by an absolute majority can arrive later. "The numbers follow the government," said Clemente Mastella with optimism, who has recently earned the figure, the role and whatever else of enlisting the "volunteers" invoked by the Prime Minister.
But for the numbers to follow the government, it will still be necessary to look for them or attract them with the most diverse arguments, even those that are not exactly ideal. In short, the second Conte government would become that of continuous fishing. It would be a huge effort. To lighten it, I frankly do not know if the fear of early elections will be enough, which will not exist for six months from July onwards, when the now expiring head of state will lose the prerogative of the dissolution of the Chambers before the expiry of their mandate. Precisely in that semester Conte, no matter how many phone calls he can spend with the new American president Joe Biden, who has already replaced Donald Trump of "Giuseppi" in his heart, he will be able to risk more than he has been in recent weeks, since Matteo Renzi , first with the support of the Democratic Party and then alone, he contested the methods and contents of government action within the majority.
The President of the Republic, for his part, in the so-called white semester if on the one hand he is or seems weakened, on the other hand he would have more free hand in the management of a possible government crisis, this time true, complete with mistrust and forced resignation of the Prime Minister. In particular, since he can no longer dissolve the Chambers, the Head of State could assess the situation of the country so worrying as to promote the formation of a government that does not conform to the expectations, ambitions, interests of the parties and challenge them before public opinion to reject a new executive inspired by him. A mistrust would aggravate the crisis in a scenario that would do well to fear Conte first, who went out of his way in recent days to barricade himself or arm himself in Palazzo Chigi.
Those who supported or even solicited this entrenchment recalled with little intellectual and political honesty the precedent of the sixth government of Giulio Andreotti, abandoned in 1990 in protest against the Mammì law on TV by five ministers of the Christian Democratic left and remained the same in its place. The resigning was replaced in no time at all by the President of the Republic Francesco Cossiga on the proposal of the Prime Minister. But this happened because the DC, led by Arnaldo Forlani with the left inside the opposition, left the protesting ministers isolated, that is, they dumped them, as Mattarella remembers well as he was one of them. Italy alive, the party of Matteo Renzi that in recent days Conte has tried to split by stiffening and proclaiming "never again to the government", has not disavowed the resigning ministers, much less its leader. Which will be unpleasant and weakened but it is still there, on the pitch.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-non-fara-mattarella/ on Tue, 19 Jan 2021 06:07:32 +0000.