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Italian President May Step Down Amid Deadlock Italian President Enlists Special Help on Political Deadlock
(about 5 hours later)
ROME — Italy was stalled in political deadlock on Saturday after a new round of talks failed to move forward toward forming a government, officials said, and news reports said President Giorgio Napolitano was weighing whether to resign to give a new team a chance at breaking the impasse. ROME — Italy’s president said Saturday that he would turn to a group of outside advisers to help him end the country’s political deadlock, after weeks of inconclusive consultations with political leaders failed to overcome ingrained divisions.
Such a move would allow Parliament to elect a new president, who would then also have the option of dissolving the body and calling new elections. The president’s office called journalists to the presidential palace around midday on Saturday, when his decision is expected. At the same time, President Giorgio Napolitano reassured Italians and international observers that despite the political uncertainty that has left the country without a government for more than a month after national elections, the caretaker government of Prime Minister Mario Monti was still solidly in charge.
Mr. Napolitano has been under some pressure from all sides to act quickly as Italy struggles through one of its most difficult economic crises since World War II. “Its productivity” is an “element of concrete certainty” in the current situation, Mr. Napolitano said.
“Enough With Games!” ran a banner headline Friday in Il Sole 24 Ore, the country’s main economic newspaper. Two groups of advisers will be asked to come up with precise proposals of “an institutional and economic-social character” that can form the basis for a constructive discussion among Italy’s fractured political parties, and help to resolve the existing stalemate, Mr. Napolitano told reporters on Saturday.
“This country needs respect and attention and, most of all, it deserves to be governed,” wrote the newspaper’s editor, Roberto Napoletano, in a front-page editorial that doubled as a succinct shopping list of grievances that the future Italian government will have to contend with. National elections five weeks ago delivered a Parliament effectively split among three hostile blocks. The center-left coalition has a majority in the lower house but not in the senate, and attempts last week by the center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, to find allies for his government fell flat.
“Almost one young Italian out of two is jobless, every day dozens of manufacturing companies fold, the sum of fiscal and contributive impositions (total tax rate) weighing on businesses has reached the record level of 68.3 percent and the cost of bureaucratic inefficiency is estimated at 73 billion euros per year,” he wrote. “The ratio between Italy’s public debt and its G.D.P. is heading toward 130 percent.” Mr. Napolitano has also been unable to overcome a series of intricate vetoes between the political parties that have scuppered possible alliances. His options are limited because he is in the last weeks of his seven-year mandate, which means that by law he cannot dissolve Parliament and call new elections.
New negotiations with political leaders became necessary Friday evening after Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the center-left coalition that won national elections last month but lacked a majority, failed to find that support after nearly a week of negotiations. But on Saturday he pledged to do what he could to create the conditions to “unblock” a political standoff “frozen between irreconcilable positions,” he said.
Earlier, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said after meeting with the president that his party, People of Liberty, was willing to work with the Democratic Party and with the centrist party backing the caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, to form a coalition government. The two groups of advisers would draft concrete proposals that would establish the priorities of the future government, Mr. Napolitano said.
“It is in the interest of the country that we give life together to a government,” Mr. Berlusconi said. “We are willing to meet with other political forces and discuss those urgent measures needed to deal with the country’s difficult economic situation.” The four members of an institutional commission include a constitutional judge, a member of the European Parliament, and lawmakers from the Democratic Party and the People of Liberty party. The economic-social commission includes the president of the National Statistics Agency; the president of Italy’s antitrust authority; a board member of the Bank of Italy; a minister in the caretaker government responsible for European issues; and two lawmakers, one from the lower house, one from the senate, who will act as liaisons between the Parliament and the government.
“We believe that there can be agreement on the principal measures,” he said. “We don’t think there is any other solution to serve the needs of the country.” “This is a tool for gaining time,” said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. And it is a way to broaden consensus for a possible candidate to lead a government put forward by Mr. Napolitano. “We are in a period where a clash is emerging between the ruling elite and the political elite, and it requires a candidate to mediate between the two,” Mr. Fabbrini said.
Such a government would also be backed by the Northern League, said that party’s secretary, Roberto Maroni, who was also present at the meeting. Mr. Napolitano has been under pressure to act quickly as Italy struggles through one of its most difficult economic crises since World War II. Unemployment is at record highs, especially among the country’s youth, economic growth has stalled and the ratio between the public debt and G.D.P. is quickly moving toward 130 percent.
But for weeks the Democratic Party has flatly rejected any alliance with Mr. Berlusconi. On Friday, Enrico Letta, a member of Mr. Bersani’s Democratic Party said after meeting with Mr. Napolitano that a coalition with the People of Liberty, “would not be the choice of change the country asked for.” Italian lawmakers mostly expressed approval of Mr. Napolitano’s plan.
The secretary of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party, Angelino Alfano, said his party appreciated the president’s efforts to find common ground between the parties. But he said his party only saw two possible solutions: a political government involving “all the major political forces” or “a return to the polls.”
Even the Five Star Movement, the anti-establishment party that won a quarter of the national vote and has pledged not to support a political government of any stripe, said Mr. Napolitano was going in the right direction. “The chosen path is the one that comes closest to a solution in such a difficult moment,” said Claudio Messora, the party spokesman.
Mr. Napolitano did not give a time frame for when the commissions would have to present their findings, suggesting that he might leave the task of forming a government to his successor, who will be chosen by Parliament within the next six weeks. Were the stalemate to continue, his successor could dissolve Parliament and call new elections, as early as June.
“That is the key decision, the selection of the new president, and elections will be closer or further away depending on who is chosen,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of political science at Luiss Guido Carli University.