The Fall of the Italian National Unity Government

Italy’s national unity government, led by a non-partisan technocrat and joined by nearly every major party, fell the week before last, after nearly a year and a half in power. The leading anti-establishment populists had declined to back a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister the week before. The Premier won the vote, but because he had said he would only govern with a broad unity government that included the populists, he offered his resignation. The President did not accept it and ordered him to address Parliament to see if he could retain his majority. The Prime Minister did, citing an unprecedented public appeal for his 17-month technocratic unity government. But the populists, together with the anti-migrant right-wing League party and the center-right Forza Italian party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi abstained from the required confidence vote because the two allies on the right refused to continue to govern with the populists. Although the confidence resolution passed, the abstentions showed a lack of support for the unity government and led to the Prime Minister’s resignation and its acceptance by the President, who called for early elections by late September. The term would have ended next year. The unity government was formed after the fall of an executive led by the populists and the main center-left party. The government crisis comes at a sensitive time during the pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian War, inflation and ahead of the budget deadline. The Prime Minister will stay in power as a caretaker, but without the authority to enact the full agenda of reforms. The populists, who had been the largest party in Parliament, had fared poorly in recent municipal elections and the Foreign Minister, who had led their party, split to form a new party over his erstwhile party’s opposition to arm sales to Ukraine, which the League also opposed. The Trumpist League leader, although opposed to the Russian Federation invasion of Ukraine, had been an admirer of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer. Forza Italia, which had heretofore been a responsible party, suffered several high-profile defections because of its decision to side with the ultra-nationalist League and undermine the government that had been successfully leading Italy through the pandemic, the obtaining of European Union pandemic relief funds and the enactment of critical reforms. The conservative party has been staunchly pro-European, in favor of the Atlantic alliance with the United States and against the Russian aggression, despite Berlusconi’s personal friendship with Putin. Press reports suggest the League worked with the Russians, with whom they have been in contact, to make the government fall, for which other parties are calling for an investigation. Forza Italia and the League are in a coalition with a right-wing party that is the only major party in opposition, along with some smaller centrist parties. The coalition leads the polls, but causing the fall of the popular national unity government at a critical time could be a costly strategy.