Prime Minister Mario Draghi's speech in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday morning lasted only a few seconds.

Before he informed the assembled parliamentarians that he actually had nothing to tell them - except that he would now go straight up to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in the Quirinal Palace and announce his resignation - after almost 18 months in office, he thanked the party dispute of his coalition of the " national unity” failed head of government to his present ministers and those deputies who had received him with a standing ovation.

Draghi's embarrassed smile indicated that the prolonged applause took his heart.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The statement, which marked the final retirement of the 74-year-old former head of the ECB from politics after an almost endlessly long debate in the Senate the day before, was only two dry sentences: "Thank you very much for all the work we have done during this time have done together.

In the light of the vote of the Senate of the Republic yesterday evening, I ask that the sitting be adjourned so that I can go to the President and inform him of my decision.”

The President left no stone unturned

Draghi did not say what the decision was.

But it was obvious that it was a decision to resign.

That was different on Thursday last week.

The president immediately rejected the head of government's resignation and asked Draghi to explain his reasons to both chambers of parliament and to ask the Senate and House of Representatives again for their confidence.

President Mattarella left no stone unturned to resolve the ill-timed government crisis and avoid early parliamentary elections in the fall, also ill-timed.

Ultimately, Mattarella's order for Draghi to try again was hopeless from the start.

After Draghi won a vote of confidence in the Senate last Thursday, but without the votes of the left-wing populist Five Star Movement, six days later he won another vote of confidence in the same place, this time without the votes of the Five Stars, the right-wing national Lega and the Christian Democrats Forza Italy.

This led to the paradoxical situation that the head of government and his cabinet won two votes of confidence in a row, after which the prime minister resigned because the majority was too small for him.

In normal political circumstances, when elected politicians struggle for power and office, the maxim applies: a majority is a majority is a majority.

As was the case with Konrad Adenauer, who was elected the first Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic in September 1949 with a majority of one vote – his own – and despite this narrowest of all conceivable results rose to become a political figure of historical greatness.

Draghi's argument upsets representatives of the people

But Draghi was and is not an (elected) politician, which he emphasized at the beginning of his combative speech in the Senate on Wednesday.

Precisely because he did not come into office as a result of a “popular election” but through an appointment by the head of state, who was also not directly elected by the people, he and his cabinet must be supported by the broadest possible majority of the elected representatives of the people.

In the Senate, Draghi justified the request to vote for him with the largest conceivable majority with the fact that after his resignation request on Thursday he received so much support from all sectors of society that he understood this as a kind of popular mandate to continue have to.

The argument did not go down well with some representatives of the people: They should confirm a technocrat without an electoral mandate in the top office of the government, even strengthen him in his office, because he had claimed the direct support of the people for himself.

It was the final misunderstanding between a former central bank governor, who led the country out of the post-pandemic emergency like an assertive manager, and the parties whose parliamentarians were demanding a return to the normal give and take of day-to-day political business.

Draghi's Senate speech was a cross between a request for support and a request for obedience.

President Mattarella then confirmed on Thursday evening that he had ordered the dissolution of parliament because the parliament in its current composition could not achieve a governing majority.

This is the first time in the history of the Republic of Italy that parliamentary elections will be held in autumn.

The parties face a short and intensive campaign for the new elections at the end of September.

At the behest of President Mattarella, Draghi and his cabinet will remain in office until a new government is formed, presumably just before November.