ROME – When Matteo Renzi, the former Italian Prime Minister currently with about 3% of votes, unleashed the collapse of the Italian government last month, he became the target of disapproval and almost universal perplexity for plunging the country into political chaos in the through a pandemic.
Now he’s taking a victory lap.
Renzi’s move not only caused the fall of a prime minister and a government that he criticized as dangerously incompetent. It also resulted in an impressive update that prompted Mario Draghi, a European titan largely credited with saving the euro, to set up a broad government of national unity, which is expected to take shape this week.
In Europe, Draghi’s fame immediately increased Italy’s stature and credibility by absorbing and spending a huge aid package that could determine the future of Italy and the European Union. At home, the gravity of Draghi’s arrival reorganized the Italian political scene and undermined Renzi’s populist enemies.
“That was my strategy. I did everything myself, with 3 percent! ”Said Renzi, a former mayor of Florence who is not ashamed of his ability to use the levers of power and outperform the competition. “It is all a game of parliamentary tactics. And let’s say that working for five years in the palace where Machiavelli worked helped a little. “
Renzi’s admirers were delighted with his magic trick, in which he created the conditions for the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, to get Draghi’s name out of his hat. They looked at Draghi – who, as president of the European Central Bank, said he would do “whatever was necessary” to save the euro – as a savior after three years as Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
“The choice is made by President Sergio Mattarella, the credit goes to Matteo Renzi and whatever is needed,” wrote Christian Rocca, editor of Linkiesta, a pro-European and anti-populist publication.
Renzi’s fans talk about how he did the dirty work, tacitly desired by various political forces, to remove Mr. Conte. In doing so, they say, he has at least temporarily drawn the curtain on a period of populist politics, inaugurated by the anti-establishment Five Star movement and Matteo Salvini’s nationalist League party.
But Renzi’s most effusive praise may come from Renzi.
“It is a masterpiece of Italian politics,” he said of the events that brought Draghi to Rome.
Renzi’s narcissism and raw ambition made it unbearable for many Italians.
“Renzi remains the problem,” said Gianfranco Pasquino, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Bologna. Renzi’s insatiable need for attention is “the only constant” in Italian politics, he said.
Love it or hate it – and many now fall into the latter category – what is hard to dispute is that Renzi is Italy’s leading political operator, someone who does not pass up a political opportunity, with or without a violent virus.
“Why now? Why now? Why now?” Renzi said that even his friends asked when he pulled the plug at the time when Italy started launching the vaccine. But he said the pandemic puts a terrifying focus on the risk of staying on the same course, especially as the country had to decide what to do with more than 200 billion euros in European aid funds. “If we hadn’t done it during the pandemic, we never would have done it.”
Mr. Renzi has practice in this type of thing.
In 2014, he tweeted infamously that the prime minister, of his own party, should “be calm”, and then took office. The “demolition man” of Italian politics, as he was called, seemed unstoppable.
But in 2016, Renzi bet his office and his ambitious reform agenda on a referendum to change the Italian constitution, and all of his enemies lined up against him. He lost, resigned and promised to abandon politics. Instead, he remained the leader of the center-left Democratic Party.
That support point mattered. In 2018, Five Star had the strongest participation in national elections, but lacked sufficient support to form a government on its own. This courted the Democratic Party, but Renzi did not allow the marriage. Instead, the Five Star joined Salvini League nationalists, forming an aggressively anti-European coalition. They chose Mr. Conte as prime minister.
Mr. Renzi seemed like news from yesterday. But in 2019, Mr. Salvini, growing in popularity, abandoned the coalition, seeking to hold elections and obtain what he called “full powers”. That was when Mr. Renzi attacked. He reversed himself and forged an alliance between his party and the Five Star, putting Salvini in opposition.
To increase his influence in the new government, Renzi formed a new party, Italia Viva, which had enough support to force Conte to trust him for the government’s survival. Renzi expected his party’s support to grow. He shrank.
In the meantime, Mr. Conte led Italy during the first months of the pandemic. His popularity soared and consumed the centrist atmosphere where Renzi’s future ambitions resided. He took Renzi’s support for granted. Always a mistake.
In January, as Covid-19 deaths increased, curfews dropped and economic frustration increased, Renzi took an attitude that many considered unthinkable.
But even though many attributed his downfall to the government to a cowardly attempt to gain more positions and influence in the cabinet, they acknowledged that Renzi had strong criticism from his side.
He blamed the government for failing to reform a glacial justice system that chased off foreign investment. He criticized the government for its lack of vision when it spent hundreds of billions of euros in European aid money. He demanded that Italy apply for up to € 36 billion in cheap EU loans for healthcare systems.
It was a poison pill, since the populists from Conte’s support base on the Five Star would never tolerate giving Brussels too much power. The government fell, but Conte seemed confident he could replace Renzi’s support with other lawmakers. Mr. Renzi said good luck to you.
Mr. Conte became increasingly desperate and offered Renzi “a ton” of cabinet positions to join the government again, said Renzi. Instead, he tied up Mr. Conte and then, at the last minute, when he was convinced that Mr. Draghi would come in, he walked away.
Renzi said his popularity almost at rock bottom “absolutely” gave him freedom to maneuver because, instead of fearing losing support, “he was worried about losing the opportunity”.
Days later, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi.
That chicken game played in public. The question is: did Mr. Renzi play a role behind closed doors in making alliances to bring in Mr. Draghi?
Renzi said it was always his unspoken desire to replace Conte with Draghi, with whom he spoke often about Italy’s economic situation, including during the crisis. But he insisted that Mr. Draghi “never spoke to me” about how to get to the position. Asked if he, Mr. Renzi, had spoken to Mr. Draghi about such a result, Mr. Renzi replied: “Next question”.
“I didn’t do anything, it was all Mattarella. Smile emoji, ”said Renzi maliciously, adding that, of all the political maneuvers he has done throughout his career,“ this operation has been the most difficult ”.
Revealingly, Renzi’s once uncompromising call for loans from Europe has diminished.
Asked if Italy would accept Draghi’s loan, he said: “It could be. Draghi will decide. “
The important thing is that Mr. Draghi had arrived. The Five Star, already shrinking, is in danger of implosion when its populists refuse to join Draghi while others join him. Salvini, whose business base in the north is excited about Draghi, has to moderate, essentially throwing years of anti-Brussels demagogy down the drain.
Renzi will not have the clout to hold the grand coalition hostage and will not have as many positions in the cabinet as Conte offered him. Instead, he gets time and a new political wind that can take him somewhere better.
Meanwhile, Conte gave a press conference last week behind a table in the middle of a square, as if asking passersby to sign a petition.
Renzi said that Conte, like Salvini before him, had gone ahead.
“Now,” he said. “Game over.”