• Crisis.Conte resigns and leads Italy to an uncertain future
  • Immigration.Matteo Salvini celebrates his blockade in Lampedusa and defines Open Arms as a "hypocritical" and "unscrupulous" NGO

In the complicated process of government formation that followed the 2018 elections, one of the main efforts of the president of the Italian Republic was that the candidate to preside over the Council of Ministers of the M5S-League coalition was a figure characterized by his experience and prestige Mattarella, protected by article 92 of the 1948 Constitution, which attributes the function of guiding and accompanying the formation of Government, aspired to raise a reputation profile to compensate for the amateurism of Di Maio and Salvini . However, the proposal of M5S and League was another: Giuseppe Conte, an unknown professor of Law at the University of Florence.

Challenging Mattarella's orientations, Conte's candidacy put at the center of Italian politics a name without political travel, without administrative experience and without any recognized link to the political life of the Italian parties. In the speech of the M5S and the League, the appointment of Conte gave rise to the populist principle, rooted in Roussea, which makes the absence of experience, knowledge and links with power the best guarantee against the vices and arabesques of traditional politics.

Beyond the populist rhetoric, the problem that the figure of Conte posed to the president of the Republic since his appointment was the possibility of a president of the Council of Ministers without autonomy or voice. Read, without real capacity to satisfy the content of article 95 of the Constitution , which attributes the direction and responsibility of the Government's action. However, far from acting as a straw man in the service of Salvini and Di Maio, in the 14 months in which Conte has been leading the Government has consolidated its own profile and a space of differentiated autonomy. A space that has taken advantage of the lack of political presence of Di Maio to become the true counterweight of the Government to the growing prominence of Matteo Salvini .

Giuseppe Conte, who swore his position a year ago by presenting himself as a "defense lawyer for the people" in tune with the populism of the Government , has submitted his resignation, paradoxically, with a speech in which he has claimed his profile as guarantor of the institutions against Salvini's exuberant power samples. The key to his speech, precisely, has been a hard adjustment of accounts with the Minister of the Interior , accompanied by the presentation of a political program as a song to Europeanism. With which, now that the institutional machinery is put back into operation to form a new Government, it presents its candidacy to continue having a role in Italian politics.

The truth is that Conte has accused Salvini of irresponsibility for breaking the government riding a favorable state of opinion. But it cannot be ruled out that Conte itself is designing its future on the back of surveys that give it a growing consensus around 12% since June. In a personalist political scenario without strong parties, the best compass to interpret each gesture remains the possibility of maximizing power. And nobody gives a stitch without thread.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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