Nearly three months after the general election in Italy, a broad centre-left coalition has emerged with Enrico Letta garnering enough support to form the government. As prime minister-designate, Letta will have a tough task holding together all the elements in the coalition, and one fears that if he is not successful, Italy could be pushed back to a time when coalitions changed as often as the seasons.
While Letta himself is of centre-left political persuasion, he has built a government relying on the support of the centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party led by disgraced former leader Silvio Berlusconi. Indeed, Letta will rely on PDL secretary Angelino Alfano as deputy prime minister and interior minister, placing Berlusconi’s associates at the very heart of the Italian government.
While Berlusconi won’t have a direct role to play in the Letta coalition, his influence will be widely felt — rather like the puppet master still pulling the strings. The deal to form the government had been held up by Berlusconi’s demand that an unpopular housing tax be dropped. That tax provides €8 billion (Dh38 billion) to Rome’s coffers, money that the Italian government cannot do without.
This coalition wrangling should not be about posturing. The reality is that Italy’s public finances are in dire straits and mismanagement of the economy under Berlusconi’s terms as prime minister pushed Rome further in the hole. Now it should be about economics, not politics.
