Political instability in Italy, the disease is chronic. In the 75 years of republican history, the country has had 66 governments and 29 council presidents.
From the birth of the Republic until today, only Alcide de Gasperi e Silvio Berlusconi They remained in office for the five years stipulated in the Constitution, but both had to resign at least once and remake the government.
The question is mandatory: how much does political instability cost Italy and who benefits from crises? The newspaper Corriere della Sera made this calculation.
How has it been so far
In the 75 years of republican history, Italy has had 66 governments and 29 council presidents and crises – this is the time that elapses between the resignation of a government and the inauguration of a new one – take up a total of 1.510 days, that is, more than four years.
Since 1994, with the second Republic, 16 governments succeeded each other with 10 prime ministers, with an average duration of 617 days.
Three government crises led to early elections: Dini 1995, Prodi II 2008 and Monti 2012.
Six reshuffles within the same majority: Prodi I, D'Alema I, D'Alema II, Berlusconi II, Letta and Renzi.
Three new alliances with a change in majority without going to elections: Berlusconi I, Berlusconi IV and Conte I.
Finally, three alliances to reach the elections at the end of the term: Amato II, Berlusconi III and Gentiloni.
Now there is the ongoing government crisis triggered by Renzi against Conte.
In the same period, or in the last 26 years, France has had 5 presidents (Mitterand, Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron); 5 in Spain (Gonzalez, Aznar, Zapatero, Rajoy and Sanchez), 3 chancellors in Germany (Kohl, Schroder and Merkel).
Who benefits from the crisis?
History says that whoever triggers the crisis usually doesn't end well. Umberto Bossi, after having exploded the Berlusconi government, in the 1996 elections: the League received more votes – going from 8,4 to 10% – but had to leave the center-right coalition, reducing the number of seats in Parliament by half (from 178 to 86).
Fausto Bertinotti, architect of the Prodi government crisis in 1998: in the 2001 elections, the Rifondazione Comunista went from 8,5 to 5% and lost two thirds of its seats (from 46 to 15).
For Clemente Mastella, overthrowing Prodi meant making his Udeur disappear, but he continued in politics, joining the PDL as a European parliamentarian.
In 2014, Matteo Renzi overthrew the Letta government. He immediately became the youngest prime minister in republican history and won 40% of the European vote.
But after two years (in December 2016) he was forced to resign after the failure of the constitutional referendum, against which part of the Lega also took sides.
Matteo Salvini, who defeated Conte I in August 2019, has lost almost 10 points in a year, according to polls.
We don't know what will happen to Renzi's IV. On the other hand, constant changes have an “incalculable” cost for the country system.
With information from Courier
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