23 April 2013

FT: Napolitano eyes Amato as Italy's unity PM

Mr Napolitano was expected to nominate a prime minister, with Giuliano Amato, a former socialist prime minister, widely tipped. Mr Amato, who is not a member of parliament, is seen as a neutral outsider able to knit together an unprecedented coalition of the mainstream parties. However, though respected abroad, he is remembered unhappily by Italians for levying an overnight tax on bank deposits in 1992 in a failed attempt to keep the lira in the European Monetary System.

Pier Luigi Bersani confirmed his resignation as the Democrats’ leader, expressing dismay at the internal “multiple warheads” that had destroyed party unity. Matteo Renzi, 38, the mayor of Florence and an outspoken critic of Mr Bersani, has emerged as the Democratic party’s favourite for prime minister. However, the party avoided naming its choice to lead the next government, voting simply to support Mr Napolitano’s efforts and drop its opposition to a grand coalition with the centre-right led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Mr Berlusconi has played a weak hand masterfully over the past two months. With opinion polls showing strong gains for his coalition, Mr Berlusconi has the most interest in early elections and would be tempted to undermine a government led by Mr Renzi, probably the politician he most fears on the centre-left. Mr Napolitano could thus be tempted to choose an outsider such as Mr Amato in an attempt to sidestep that sort of power play.

A “grand coalition” between the Democrats and Mr Berlusconi would also be joined by Mario Monti’s centrist Civic Choice and possibly the right/wing Northern League. Well aware of their personal enmities and ideological divisions, Mr Napolitano has already laid out an agenda of institutional reforms for the next government, including a new electoral law and measures to lift Italy out of its deepening recession, now entering its eighth quarter.

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