In Italy, the presidential election at the end of January almost led to a serious political crisis: the Prime Minister was the only consensual candidate among the great voters of this ballot by indirect suffrage, and his election would have led to the fall of the government. By accepting a second term, at age 80 and reluctantly, President Sergio Mattarella should therefore guarantee the stability of the country until the legislative elections of 2023.
The attitude is impassive, the gaze piercing. On January 29, when Sergio Mattarella thanked the electors for their confidence, he recalled that he only accepted to relegate personal considerations to the background for ” do not shy away from duty in a context of health, economic and social crisis. A sense of responsibility appreciated: with 759 votes out of 983 Sergio Mattarella is the most elected Italian president after Sandro Pertini.
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If the President of the Republic is essentially the guarantor of the Constitution in Italy, his power and his role are quite elastic in times of crisis. And since 2018, Sergio Mattarella has played a decisive role. During Giuseppe Conte’s first government formed in 2018, he was ” the only point of reference at European and international level, at a time when Italy fell victim to the nationalist fury of the 5 stars and the League “, explains MEP Sandro Gozzi, of the centrist group Renew.
For example during the recall to Paris of Ambassador Christian Masset following meetings with the yellow vests of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio. ” It is clear thatat at that time, the only interlocutor for Emmanuel Macron, and for others, like Angela Merkel, was Sergio Mattarella “. The president also opposed at the time the appointment of the eurosceptic Paolo Savona to the post of Minister of the Economy, as the Constitution gives him the right to do.
A discreet tactician
Mattarella works with discretion, it’s one of his character traits, reports Sandro Gozi. The man ” speaks little, he listens, he observes a lot, he is someone who likes to study the files in depth – he is a jurist, he was also a judge at the Constitutional Court “. And if he’s a bit quiet, ” maybe it’s because of its sicilian character “. The Sicily where he is from and politics have marked Sergio Mattarella in his flesh: a minister father, and a brother president of the Sicily region assassinated by the mafia in 1980.
The man is recognized by the Italians as a great honest and experienced character, details the political scientist Giuseppe Bettoni of the University of Rome, Tor Vergata: “ Mattarella is known for the simplicity and sobriety of his manners. At the same time, he is a man of great skill in “food“Politics, because he took part in so many negotiations, in the elaboration of government compromises, that he knows perfectly well what political life consists of, he is not fooled. And he is not a naive no more “.
He is even a leading figure in the political history of the peninsula. He was notably one of the architects of the Italian center left. Having embodied the left wing of Christian Democracy until the party imploded, he later helped found the Olivier, which would become the Democratic Party. And in Sicily, explains Giuseppe Bettoni, it is he who pushes the current mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando to the forefront of the political scene.
The man from the “Mattarellum”
Abroad, Sergio Mattarella is almost unknown and when he is, it’s as President of the Republic. But before becoming head of state, he left his mark on Italian society during an accomplished political career. Of his main initiatives, Giuseppe Bettoni first retains the electoral law of 1993, known as “Mattarellum”, which put an end to integral proportional representation.
” This law had made it possible to reach compromises, it is above all for that that he is known. But he played a very important role as Minister of Defence, a position he held when Italy took part in the mission in Kosovo, it is something that should not be forgotten; and as Minister of Education, with his autonomy reform on the school system “. Sergio Mattarella also headed the Secret Service, where he was originally ” of an “extremely important” reform of Italian intelligence “.
Influence until the end
But today, at 80, the one who preferred the two-room apartment of a hotel residence to the splendor of the Quirinal Palace, and who gave up part of his retirement, aspires to spend time with his grandchildren. . ” It’s an open secretreports Giuseppe Bettoni, Sergio Mattarella will probably resign as soon as Draghi has finished his mandate, or a little before the end of the parliamentary mandate. That’s why he accepted. At the same time, Mattarella is a man who does a lot of politics, but who has a high level of ethics. It is therefore possible that he resigns after the legislative elections, so that the new Parliament can elect “his” President of the Republic. »
The stakes are high: by resigning before the legislative elections, Sergio Mattarella would allow Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a democrat and pro-European, to succeed him – as the interested party wishes. If he chooses to wait for the result of the legislative elections, out of respect for the institutions and the rules, his successor could have a completely different profile, if we are to believe the polls at the end of January, which gave 38% of the voting intentions to the far-right parties League and Brothers of Italy, and 14% to the 5-star populist movement. At the time of retirement again, Sergio Mattarella will mark the destiny of Italy.
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