SuperMario here, SuperMario there. Let's be honest: of Mario Draghi it would take two, one for the Quirinale and one for Palazzo Chigi, but unfortunately not even SuperMario is capable of splitting or doubling himself. We'll have to figure it out.
Well in advance of the choice of the future President of the Republic, whom Parliament will have to elect next January, there are those who fail to see how the games around the Quirinale and around Palazzo Chigi, but mainly around Mario Draghi, are already in full swing. If Sergio Mattarella does not change his mind, accepting the request of a part of the political forces to extend his mandate at least until the end of the legislature, to date the candidate in pole position for the Quirinale is Prime Minister Mario Draghi, which many would prefer to stay, however at the head of the Government until the general elections of 2023. However, no one knows what SuperMario would really like to do, who wisely takes great care not to show his cards, first of all out of respect for the current tenant of the Quirinale, but also so as not to involuntarily offer sides to overly instrumental games.
But what is really behind the extraordinary critical acclaim that Draghi is also collecting these days in Italy and around the world? There definitely are the results that the prime minister is obtaining at the helm of the government: the acceleration of the anti-Covid vaccination plan which with the first dose reached 82% of the population that can be vaccinated; the economic boom, which this year will mark an incredible growth of 6% and which will perhaps come close to 7%, as in the times of the economic miracle; the launch of the PNRR and of the reforms, which will bring up to 200 billion of Europe into the coffers of the Italian state. But, beyond the prejudicial criticisms of Meloni's far right on the one hand and the nostalgics of Giuseppe Conte on the other side, there is also the acknowledgment of what a highly competent premier can do for Italy and of undisputed authority.
Again the other day the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, spared no praise for our prime minister and only a few months ago the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, had confessed that "when President Draghi speaks at the European Council, we are all silent and listen”, because he is a “teacher”. After all, how can we forget that at the end of July 2012, in the midst of the sovereign debt crisis, the magic of Draghi's words (the famous "Whatever it takes") was enough to save the euro and Europe from the risk of a ruinous meltdown.
However, behind the extraordinary consensus that Draghi collects, it is not all roses and the instrumentality of many maneuvers can be seen with the naked eye. How to read the intention of Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini to promote Draghi at the Quirinale? Were they perhaps electrocuted on the road to Damascus? Impossible to believe it. In reality Meloni and Salvini, beyond their evident rivalry for the supremacy of the centre-right, smell the electoral success and they would like to go to the vote as soon as possible: electing Draghi as President of the Republic would therefore become a great shortcut, because hardly anyone would bet a penny on the possibility that after the end of the Draghi government, the political forces would be able to find an agreement to form another Executive for the last year of the legislature.
But if it is completely obvious that the Brothers of Italy and the League do their job, it is surprising that both i Five stars that the majority of Pd are one step away from falling into the trap. Beyond the diversions and beating about the bush, both Giuseppe Conte among the Five Stars and the group headed by Goffredo Bettini in the Democratic Party and which still seems capable of influencing the Letta secretariat, do not hide their propensity to elect Draghi to the Presidency of the Republic even at the cost of facing – after his election to the Quirinale – an uphill election campaign, which could hardly overturn the centre-right's predictions of victory. For what reasons? It is not difficult to decipher them.
Conte would like to go to the vote as soon as possible to save what can be saved and defend its hard core of consensus which it sees diminishing day after day after the abrupt departure from Palazzo Chigi at the instigation of Matteo Renzi. There majority of the Democratic Party, who has rediscovered "extreme bipolarity" by no coincidence, sees the use of early voting in 2022 as an opportunity to seize in one fell swoop three goals, even if it runs the risk of a very likely electoral reversal: 1) defeat the internal reformist Base minority purging her from the electoral lists without having to face an insidious congressional appointment; 2) liquidate the forces of the center of the political alignment – from Renzi to Calenda and Bonino – preventing the birth of a proportional electoral law, which in reality could give the Pd a lot of freedom of maneuver if it were inspired by a more farsighted strategy; 3) run towards the final embrace with the Five Stars, even if when it comes to choosing the candidate for prime minister between Enrico Letta and Giuseppe Conte sparks are not excluded.
Naturally both the maneuvers of Meloni and Salvini and those of the Democratic Party and the Five Stars in view of the election of the President of the Republic are completely legitimate and there is no doubt that a personality of the caliber of Mario Draghi would best represent Italy even on the Colle, but – as the illustrious constitutional lawyer Sabino Cassese says – “the Quirinale is an accordion, but it cannot be expanded much more” and not even Draghi from up there could do for the good of our country what he is doing and could still do at Palazzo Chigi.
But, to remain at the central point of the discussion, there is a test-window of the general interest of the country which no political force can escape. If you don't want to end up in political politics, you can't avoid the question about what Italy's main interest is today and in the coming months. And it is all too easy to answer that our country has a golden opportunity ahead of it and that it would be criminal not to carry out the fight against the pandemic to the end and not do everything possible to prolong well beyond 2021 and well beyond 2022 record GDP growth.
To achieve these objectives, the palace games are zero and there is only one main way: to carry out the reforms that have just begun and which Europe considers an essential condition for disbursing the promised resources and increasing growth potential in a lasting way of the country's economy for the years to come. Raise your hand if you believe that today there is a better alternative to achieving these goals continuation of the Draghi Government and who believes that, once the current political balance has been shattered, it is realistic to imagine – without even knowing when – a safer, more effective and more authoritative solution than the one now in Palazzo Chigi. Long live Prime Minister Draghi.
