Monti urges debate on Italian election

Reuters/Rome

Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti posted his reform agenda online yesterday, urging Italians to join a debate on their country’s future as potentially bitter election campaign gets underway two months before Italy goes to polls.

Following weeks of hesitation, Monti declared his availability on Sunday to lead a reform-minded centrist alliance to seek a second term to complete the economic reform programme begun when he took office just over a year ago.

The former European Commissioner who was appointed at the head of a technocrat government to save Italy from financial crisis, has now thrown off his mantle of neutrality and entered a race that will be dominated by his tough reform agenda.

Even if he confirms his entry into the campaign, Monti appears unlikely at this stage to return to office but his involvement could strengthen a centrist alliance and help shape the agenda of the next government.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which has pledged to maintain Monti’s broad reform course while giving more help to workers and pensioners and emphasising growth more, is favoured to win but may have to strike a coalition deal with the centre.

In an open letter to Italians posted online and accompanied by a 25-page policy programme, Monti said he hoped that the agenda would lead to an “open reflection” that would help shape the debate ahead of the election on February 24-25.

He urged a mix of budget rigour and structural reform as well as measures to crack down on corruption and get more women and young people to work.

However, the tone of the campaign has inevitably moved away from calm debate and into the murky and sometimes treacherous territory of Italian party politics, where Monti is a novice.

At a news conference on Sunday, he attacked left-wing trade unions for resisting reform but reserved special criticism for his scandal-plagued predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, whom he picked on repeatedly for his “bewildering” changes of position.

Speaking to one of his own television channels, the 76 year-old media billionaire responded by saying that it would be “immoral” for Monti to fight the election after governing as an unelected premier with the support of the main parties.

One of Berlusconi’s chief lieutenants, Fabrizio Cicchitto, parliamentary floor leader of his People of Freedom (PDL) party, indicated that Monti’s international standing and the respect he enjoys among Italy’s European partners would count for little.

“He’s taken aim at the PDL, which obviously has no choice but to respond in kind,” Cicchitto said.

Monti, a Life Senator who does not need to stand for election to parliament, has not said exactly what forces he could support but the centrist parties he has been linked with greeted his announcement with great enthusiasm.

“We’re not forcing Monti but obviously if it happens, the value it adds to our project will be enormous,” Pierferdinando Casini, head of the centrist UDC party, which is close to the Catholic church, told La Repubblica.

A small number of centrists from both the two main parties, including former foreign finister Franco Frattini announced they were leaving their parties and would support Monti, whose reform agenda is strongly backed by Italy’s business establishment.

However the centrist group lags both the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the PDL as well as the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in opinion polls and without Monti, it has little chance of making any significant gains.

Even with the respected economics professor at its head, a centrist alliance including the UDC and other smaller parties including a new group created by Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, appears likely to struggle to pass 15%.

Press dubs Monti the ‘reluctant candidate’

AFP/Rome

Italian media dubbed Mario Monti a “reluctant candidate” yesterday after he declared himself ready to govern the country again after elections, with newspapers lamenting the outgoing premier’s ambiguity.

A front-page editorial in the best-selling daily, Il Corriere della Sera, slammed Monti’s “lack of clarity”.

“At the end of the day, Mario Monti will be a non-candidate candidate,” wrote Massimo Franco, who said the former eurocrat’s descent into the electoral fray was beginning “in a fog where potential voters risk getting lost”.

“The elections are two months away. Voters need a clear idea of the various camps and their leaders,” Il Corriere said.

The left-wing Repubblica expressed similar concerns.

“The (political) line is vague, the words are nebulous,” Massimo Giannini said in his editorial.

“Monti, for the moment, is not a candidate. Better still: he is a candidate, but in his own way. A ‘reluctant’ candidate’,” he said.

The 69-year-old Monti, who was Italy’s unelected technocrat prime minister since November last year, said he would be ready to lead those who sign up to his programme to “change Italy and reform Europe”.

The conservative La Stampa warned that “Monti’s speech may end up having no practical consequences ... because the road map announced was not clear”.

The irreverent Il Fatto Quotidiano daily published a caricature of Monti on a mountain, Moses-style, presenting his Ten Commandments in front of both allies and rivals.

“I am Monti, and you are not,” it said, evoking criticisms that the former eurocrat’s unorthodox bid appeared to make no effort to reach out to voters and stood apart from political parties.

Outgoing prime minister gets support of the Catholic Church

Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was praised by the Catholic Church yesterday, a day after he launched a centrist reform manifesto on which he is basing his bid to stay in office beyond February elections.

Monti, who resigned last week, said he would serve again if he secured enough support for a programme of budget consolidation, economic liberalisation, labour and justice reforms, and more European Union integration.

“I think it is an innovative way of doing things,” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told a radio programme on state broadcaster RAI.

He said that everybody – politicians and ordinary voters – should be able to engage in a “serious and honest reflection” on Monti’s “concrete proposals”.

The Catholic Church has an influential voice in Italian politics. While officially neutral, it was previously seen as supportive of the centre-right camp led by Monti’s predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, who is running again for office.