There is no doubt that the world, and therefore Italy, is hit by a series of extraordinary events. We can say, without falling into rhetoric, that before, following the pandemic (whose responsibility lies with China, both in the hypothesis that it started from a market and in that it is a virus that escaped a laboratory in Wuhan that played with fire), then following the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia, then also due to a succession of environmental events (drought, climatic storm) we entered a completely new political phase after the Yalta peace of 1945 and the fall of the USSR and the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the consequent change of name of the PCI which took place in 1989-1991.
In our opinion, as well as the advent of fascism and Nazism between the 1920s and 1930s, the existence in Russia of a dictatorship like Putin’s which is not communist in the ideological and historical sense of the term, but which is aggressive, predatory, kleptocratic and which daily adopts asymmetric warfare through the political use of the internet (see Marta OttavianiThe Russian Brigades) has completely upset the Italian political framework, already devastated both by the electoral victories of a populist, indifferent, anti-political, anti-parliamentary, anti-industrial movement such as the M5s (25% in the 2013 elections, 32% in the 2018 ones), both from the transformation of the Northern League into Salvini’s ultra-sovereign, populist League, open to the contribution of far-right groups and with a consultation pact made in 2017 and still in force with United Russia, accompanied by a thousand other explicit demonstrations of political solidarity with Putin.
In this picture there has been the paradoxical mutation of the M5s which, starting from the platforms that we summarily defined earlier, then arrived at its opposite, in the sense that since 2018 the M5s with its 32% has been instrumental in the formation of three governments of the opposite sign, Count I, a far-right government between Grillini and Salvini; the Conte II, a populist center-left government between the M5s and the PD and then the government of national unity chaired by Draghi.
The underlying reason for this singular mutation is soon explained: the M5s did everything to preserve its only treasure, which was precisely that 32% of parliamentarians who would certainly have been reduced both due to the drop in the percentage of consents and due to a another reason: that is, the cut of parliamentarians strongly desired by the grillini and passively accepted by the PD. So then, at the end of the story, a disturbing ritual that dates back to Stalin’s times was repeated, albeit this time in a peaceful way: just as the main assassin of the communists was Stalin, so it was they who destroyed a significant number of grillini themselves and their tribal procedures: first the cut of parliamentarians, then Grillo’s decision to keep firm to the principle of two mandates which decapitated the entire Grillino leadership group.
Given all of the above, due to a series of circumstances which it is useless to reconstruct here, in any case in an extraordinarily serious world, European and Italian context, Italy also thanks to the initiatives of the only political leader endowed with spirit of finesse and contempt of danger, that is Matteo Renzi, found itself with a government almost of national unity (within everything except Giorgia Meloni and Fd’I) presided over by a character of extraordinary political, technical, cultural qualities such as Mario Draghi.
Draghi is not a Monti-like technocrat, he has a liberal-socialist cultural background, he dominates the maze of European technocracy, he has always had a sense of his mission: since Europe has understood that the 2007-2011 austerity line would have brought everyone to ruin, in the face of the pandemic it allocated enormous sums which however had to be translated into a reform plan (the PNRR). However, Draghi has not been and so far it is not only that: he is also an umbrella for Italy both with respect to the technical mechanisms that guide the PNRR and with respect to the basic choice made by the West, which was to give the halt to Putin because otherwise if he hadn’t been blocked in Ukraine he wouldn’t have stopped, but would have spread to Moldova and the Baltic countries (it is no coincidence that only now with him and not with the leaders of orthodox communism have Finland and Sweden joined the BORN). Well, all of this, amid a thousand problems and contradictions, worked until with a carom game about three months after the elections, firstly the M5s, then Salvini accompanied by Berlusconi decided to bring down the government. Only in the indefinite future will we know the underlying reasons for this game of massacre. At present we can say that there may have been two. The first hypothesis, the more “normal” one, is that it was a question of mediocre electoral reasons: both the M5s and Salvini believed that an identification with the government would have resulted in further losses of votes and that instead a resumption of protagonism demagogic would have allowed them some recovery. It must be said that this explanation may be valid for Conte and Salvini, certainly not for Berlusconi. In our opinion, Berlusconi has missed a historic opportunity to truly relaunch himself: if he had blocked Salvini and saved the Draghi government, he would have taken over the leadership of the centre-right, regained great prestige at national and European level (and therefore also electoral support) and would have given a bank to Giorgetti and the regional presidents of the League to block Salvini himself. He didn’t do it and preferred to be guided by sen. Ronzulli and by the Hon. Tajani along the line of total sovereignty over Salvini (who also took the opportunity to make lists of his thugs). The second hypothesis, on the other hand, is the more disturbing one and that is that since Italy has been in Putin’s sights for some time, then Conte, Salvini and consequently also Berlusconi have moved by gathering input from that world which is very active in our country, considered the weak link of the European Union and NATO.
However, where a huge geopolitical problem emerges is on the decisive Ukrainian question
The facts will tell us which of these two interpretations is the valid one: it may even be that there is an intermediate one. That said, on the eve of the elections, regardless of the results (which, as we write this article, are marked by polls that all predict a more or less clear victory for the centre-right), we cannot help but notice that in any case we see highly problematic governance .
Let’s start with the centre-right. However, it presents itself as a coalition capable of adding together all its votes at election time. That said, however, some fundamental questions emerge. The accounts do not add up. Salvini proposes a budget deviation of 30 billion, plus an immediate quota of 41 and a flat tax of 15%. So everything jumps, so much so that Giorgia Meloni has expressed her opposition to the budget variance. Berlusconi for his part has proposed a flat tax of 23% and pensions of 1,000 euros for everyone. As you can see we are on the ground of lottery numbers. On the ground of Covid (which still exists, even if everyone removes it) neither Salvini nor Meloni are reliable and reassuring: in the past they have rejected both the masks and the green pass.
However, where a huge geopolitical problem emerges is on the decisive Ukrainian question. On it Giorgia Meloni has been unequivocal and in solidarity with Ukraine, she holds firm on sanctions and the shipment of weapons, she has expressed a general Atlanticist and pro-European position. Salvini is at the antipodes on this terrain, he is riding the no to sanctions and in any case he has always been a pro-Putinist. It remains to be seen what he will do if Russian pressure to blow up everything to destabilize Italy so as to open a hole in the European Union becomes strong. This is a very present question, which weighs on the whole Italian situation.
As can be seen, even considering all the substantial problems that are on the table (the energy node, inflation-recession, Russia’s military and political attack, Covid), all the conditions exist for a perfect storm
Let’s move on to the centre-left. In our opinion, Enrico Letta has committed all possible and imaginable mistakes. If he believed that there was a fascist danger in Italy then he should have proposed an alliance on the model of the “Salerno turning point” with everyone inside, from Conte to centrists of all kinds, to Fratoianni and Bonelli. If instead, as happened until the end of August, your assessment was that a dispute was open with the centre-right on very delicate issues such as the configuration of Europe, the implementation of the PNRR, immigration, fiscal policy, the healthcare, then he should have aimed at the aggregation of a reformist pole with Calenda, Renzi, Bonino. Instead, Letta went back and forth in zigzags: first he included Calenda and excluded Renzi and Conte, then he opened up to Fratoianni and Bonelli, putting Calenda in an unsustainable situation whereby, apart from his bad character and tendency to use Twitter in compulsively, he was forced to break away because otherwise he would have found himself in company that would cause a good chunk of his electorate to flee. The result of these disorganized movements is that there is no program of what is left of the centre-left coalition (PD, +Europe, Left, Greens), but there is a program of the PD and another program by Fratoianni, clearly incompatible even if the PD has started doing a sort of grotesque striptease with respect to its previous reformist positions.
Finally, frankly, we have not even understood the meaning of Enrico Letta’s final outburst of nerves on the right-wing dangers deriving from the current electoral law: it is the PD that has given the green light to this infernal mixture by accepting the cut in parliamentarians not accompanied by a reform in a clearly proportional sense of the electoral law. We stop here. As can be seen, even considering all the substantial problems that are on the table (the energy node, inflation-recession, Russia’s military and political attack, Covid) all the conditions exist for a perfect storm.
Without conceding anything to diplomacy, we cannot help but point out that the crucial point is the following: if Putin pushes his plan to destabilize Italy to the end, how will the political forces he is able to influence respond, first of all all Salvini, to follow Conte, and what will Berlusconi really do if the Putinist pressure becomes ever more pressing and invasive? As you can see, this is not a trivial question.