No one said it explicitly, but when in November last year Giorgio Napolitano appointed Mario Monti senator for life, before giving him the task of succeeding Berlusconi with the formation of a government detached as far as possible from the conditioning of the parties, many it seemed that the path for the Bocconi professor was almost cleared: first he would serve the country by leading what should have been the government that would have prevented the country from falling into the abyss, then, after the elections that would have brought the country back to a normal political dialectic , would have become the natural candidate for the presidency of the Republic. With a path in part similar to the one that led Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to the Quirinal who, however, after being prime minister and before going up to Colle, also served as minister of the Treasury in the Prodi 1 and D'Alema governments.
The first part of this path, imagined by many protagonists and political observers, has come true: our country has recovered, thanks to Monti, its international prestige, the spread has dropped, the Italians, especially the weakest categories, have accepted very hard sacrifices which could hardly be imposed by others. There are still many doubts about the second part of the journey, the one the Bocconi professor wanted to imagine proceeding towards the Quirinale. In Italy the center parties (old and new) are insisting that Monti be their candidate for prime minister. In Europe, and we have seen these days in Brussels, a hypothesis of this kind is considered very favourably. Especially in the EPP, but not only in the EPP.
It is now understandable that the parties in our central Italy aim to have a strong hypothesis for the next electoral campaign to put in place to face the opinion of the voters, proposing the name and the "agenda" (a somewhat abused term inappropriate) of Monti. At the same time, it is no wonder that the major European leaders, who have been able to appreciate the professor's role in these difficult months, are openly rooting for him. Yet, and this is especially true for those who look at us from other European countries, the weight and importance of the role played by the presidents of the republic in our history and in our legal system is not always properly taken into consideration. Think of the post-war Einaudi who guaranteed the passage from the Cihellenistic governments to those of the parties, and of Pertini who found himself guaranteeing the leadership of a country devastated by the terrorism of the Red Brigades, in the aftermath of the Moro crime.
But one wonders above all what would have happened to our country in the last almost twenty years, in which Berlusconi and his consortia went crazy in politics, if from the highest Colle Napolitano, Ciampi, and, in many ways, even Scalfaro (his "I'm not in" has never completely convinced what he writes) had not defended the correct ordering of the country's constitutional life.
Now of course everyone has the right to take the path they prefer. And there are many (not him) who say that Monti would prefer to continue to assert himself as prime minister rather than as head of state. Certainly, however, underestimating the role of guarantee that belongs to the President of the Republic would be and is a macroscopic error of political short-sightedness. Above all by those who have already shown that they know how to serve the country in the best possible way, despite the "strange majority" with which they have had to deal with in recent months.
Already because there is another question to ask: what would be the majority, this time a political one, on which Monti could base himself after the political elections? Only a centre-left majority. Indeed, there is no doubt that the instrumental support of Berlusconi's right is more of an almost mortal embrace, from which to escape, than a push towards Palazzo Chigi. At the same time the center alone (Casini, Montezemolo, the ACLI, the CISL, if necessary Giannino) would not be enough either for self-sufficiency or to be ahead of the candidate of the Democratic Party of the PSI and of SEL. In short, since Bersani does not seem to have any intention of giving up the candidacy earned in the primaries, it seems really difficult to predict a victory for the center in the next policies. Of course, the center could have modest numbers, but still decisive, given the type of electoral law used to vote. But if it is true that bipolarism is still very far from us, it is not even decent to go back to the times of Ghino di Tacco or the two ovens of Andreotti's memory.
For these reasons, the reasoning developed by D'Alema in an interview with "Corriere della Sera" may or may not be liked, but it is a precise political warning to Monti's supporters: if the current prime minister decides to run as an alternative in Bersani, he would be in conflict with the political force that has most guaranteed the stability of his government. Now it is not certain that this, as D'Alema suggests, is unethically correct behaviour, but it is certain that it would have political consequences in the attitude of the centre-left, making it more difficult, after the elections, to form a government and before still the election of the head of state.
Naturally now everything depends on what Monti decides, in his absolute autonomy. It is to be hoped that the Prime Minister will decide and make his decisions just as soon. Which will certainly be in the interest of the country. To serve which it is sometimes more necessary to understand the needs of politics than personal inclinations.
