“If citizens want the Cartabia reform to change, in the event of unexpected results before the end of the transitional regime, that is 2024, they will only have to vote for us en masse: I have made the solemn commitment that we will not allow impunity”. After all, what Giuseppe Conte has in mind with regard to the relationship of the new M5s with the Draghi government is all in this sentence contained in the interview granted to the reference sheet, the daily fact, immediately after the coronation.
Of government but also and above all of struggle, albeit with the polite tones that distinguish the law professor who was prime minister “by chance” for three years with two opposing majorities: first M5s-Lega, then M5s-Pd-Leu-Iv. Aiming to change the reforms just approved in Parliament by an overwhelming majority is the exact opposite of what Mario Draghi is aiming for: launching reforms agreed with the European Union in a shared way so that, regardless of who wins the next elections, there is continuity on the legal-institutional-economic infrastructure of the country.
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The relationship with Draghi: Count of struggle and government
It is clear that Conte would prefer to return to the vote as soon as possible to collect the popularity he still enjoys, perhaps next spring immediately after the election of Sergio Mattarella’s successor at the Quirinale. It is no coincidence that in his investiture speech he announced the presentation “of the most articulated and participatory government program ever developed” for the end of 2021: be ready, in any case. But the new leader also knows that he will not be allowed to pull too hard with the Draghi government to the point of putting it in danger: from the other parties of the large Draghian majority, Pd and Lega in the first place, but also from the conspicuous governist wing of the movement that he sees in the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio his point of reference. Conte just has to try to “enforce the numbers of the M5s in Parliament” and affect as much as possible the many reforms that await the yes of the Council of Ministers after returning from August holidays: competition and taxation in the first place, already postponed due to the laborious mediation that resulted in the Chamber giving the go-ahead for the reform of the criminal trial. Reform approved by the M5s ob torto collo, as demonstrated by the first words of Conte’s leader.
Enrico Letta and the dilemma: with the M5s or with the Draghi diary?
This attitude of struggle and government creates some difficulties for the premier, of course, who will have to field a surplus of patience and mediation capacity, but it will also have effects on the other parties of the majority: on the one hand, the League will feel authorized. to raise the tone of his flags; on the other hand, the Democratic Party will find it increasingly difficult to continue on the path of building the progressive coalition that will have to challenge the center-right united in the next political elections. Already the relations between Conte and the secretary of the Pd Enrico Letta have cooled down in recent weeks precisely because of the tug-of-war on the knot of the impediment introduced by the Cartabia reform to overcome the limitation block decided at the time by the M5s and by the then minister Alfonso Bonafede. For the dem now it is a crossroads of identity: to make the Draghi agenda, also given the great prestige and popularity enjoyed by the premier, or to pursue Conte’s M5s in the distinctions?
The future coalition and the meager spoils of the M5s-Pd pact at the administrative offices
As for the now imminent administrative elections, the budget of the M5s-Pd alliance risks being rather meager. On October 3, voting will take place in the large municipalities, Rome Milan Turin Bologna Naples, and in a thousand other Italian municipalities. The polls speak of 5-star lists in trouble in the consensus in the first round but whose votes could be important where a center-left coalition has been formed and even more so in the ballot. But on closer inspection, the M5s-Pd pact that Conte and Letta had imagined as “a wonderful adventure” in their first meeting last March exists only in Naples, Bologna and Calabria. In Rome and Turin, where the outgoing mayors Chiara Appendino and Virginia Raggi have governed for five years (both will be part of the steering committee of the M5s, the new “secretariat” that Conte will appoint in September), there will be a tough contrast and a semblance is now ruled out to the ballot. The assessment will be made in mid-October, but it is clear that if the M5s-Pd alliance were to fail where it was managed to set it up, this would be a bad viaticum in view of the political elections of 2023.