A few weeks before the secret vote in Parliament, scheduled in January, to elect the new president of the Republic of Italy, there are no clear candidates for such an important position, especially in periods of greatest crisis.
There is much speculation about the possibility of the current prime minister, the economist Mario Draghi, assuming the presidency.
Faced with this, Berlusconi, who has recently had health problems in addition to the coronavirus, is moving his pieces in the complex political chess.
“Berlusconi will try and could be successful“Gianfranco Pasquino, professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, told AFP.
The president of Italy is a particularly prestigious position in a parliamentary republic, but he has the power to dissolve Parliament and is therefore called upon to mediate in frequent government crises as the sole arbiter.
The outgoing president, Sergio MattarellaA seasoned parliamentarian, he ends his term after seven years and was instrumental in imposing Draghi as the leader of a national unity government last February after the ruling coalition collapsed.
Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, refuses to confirm or deny that he aspires to become head of state.
It currently manages the colossal fund of more than 190,000 million euros (214,000 million dollars) that the European Union (EU) granted to Italy to reactivate the economy after the pandemic.
Many, including Berlusconi, believe that the 74-year-old Draghi should remain in office until the legislative elections scheduled for 2023 in order to secure the reforms the EU is demanding.
Some experts believe that he could exercise that role from the presidency, which would be an anomaly anyway.
For Lorenzo Codogno, a former Treasury Minister, Draghi can “exercise considerable influence … be the guarantor of the reforms and investments that Italy must carry out.”
A minister could temporarily hold the post of head of government while parliament appoints a new prime minister.
However, that scenario runs the risk of sparking inter-party disputes and leading to snap elections, in which the parties of the right and extreme right could be victorious, according to the polls.
Berlusconi, who burst onto the political scene in 1994 seducing millions of Italians with his television empire, has neither confirmed nor denied his candidacy.
At the same time, several names are circulating, including that of the Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia, that of the former president of the House of Representatives Pierferdinando Casini and that of the European Commissioner for the Economy and former head of Government Paolo Gentiloni.
“The center-right will probably vote together for Berlusconi in the first round. It will be a kind of prize for the race.”, says Codogno.
However, he considers that “there is no chance” that he will be able to gather enough votes to successively obtain the majority.
During the first three rounds, the candidate must obtain two-thirds of the votes of the voters – senators, deputies and representatives of the regions – while from the fourth round, a simple majority is sufficient.
The tycoon, who had to serve a year of civil service in 2014 as a penalty for tax evasion, has “a very complicated past” against him, according to Pasquino.
Berlusconi is involved in two trials in which he is accused of having bribed witnesses to get them to lie about his “bunga bunga” parties while he was prime minister, described by the invited girls as sex parties.
However, the founder and leader of the center-right party Come on Italy strives to present himself as a moderate, reasonable man, a competent statesman capable of containing the excesses of the rebellious and anti-European extreme right.
He has even made proposals to the 5 Star Movement (M5E), an anti-system formation that won the last elections and that he described in 2018 as a group of incapable people who would not even hire to clean their bathroom.
Franco Pavoncello, a political science professor at John Cabot University in Rome, told AFP that the probability of Berlusconi being elected is “low.”
“In addition to his age and his background, choosing him would raise many questions internationally,” he explained.
Source From: Ambito
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