Let's be clear. We cannot discuss semi-presidentialism in Italy without first going through and resolving the critical issues underlying the political-ideological debate relating to the form of government. And it is not possible to discuss semi-presidentialism leaving aside "in toto" a reform of the Constitutional Charter that could make the hypothesis not only current, but also, banally, temporally lasting.
The institutional political context which, on the decisive action of the President of the Republic in office, led to the emergence of the Government of National Unity led by Mario Draghi, simultaneously constitutes the cause and the indicator of an attempt to change the fact, already in place at the time of Mario Monti back in 2011, and in any case unsuitable, now as then, to break the dogma of legal formalism. And otherwise it could not be considered, on the one hand, the anything but party-based drawing of the President of the Council of Ministers, and also considered, on the other hand, the only apparently party-based composition of the Government, condemned to remain folded in on itself in position of "incident" decision-making inefficiency in order not to be a direct expression of a formal investiture coming from the electoral body. "Whoever is the cause of his illness, weep himself" went an old adage. Parliament has supinely accepted its "invalidating limit" under the effects of Renzian rancorous intoxication without placing any "counter-limit" useful for re-establishing the right balance in internal relations between Government and Parliament.
Consequently, the distortion has emerged in an evident way: Mario Draghi has become, perhaps in spite of himself, the crystalline emblem of the constraint to the autonomy of the parties, and his Government of National Unity, consequently, has constituted, and continues to constitute undisturbed the imperfect mechanism of breaking the relationship of trust between Government and Parliament set in motion by virtue of a principle as captivating on the ideological level as it is fallacious on the naturalistic one: that, to be clear, relating to the "personalization" of politics, or rather, of its leading actors. The suggestion seems to be the master, but we should not be surprised. It happens all the times in which party inefficiency deliberately lets its basic prerogatives fall on the carpet in order to deliver the seals of power to a certain "Someone" abstractly suitable, for his claimed personal "other" qualities, to personify, for a a period of time that one would like to have "limited", that anachronistic ideal of super-man on which to confidently and ruinously fall every responsibility of government. Whether it is more correct to speak in the reductive terms of "suspension of democracy" or in those strictly defining the return of "technocracy" is a question, all in all, scarcely significant. Rather, what is relevant is that the so-called "democratic question" appears again on the parliamentary landscape despite the exceptional nature of the circumstances that have helped to justify a "legitimacy" (that of Mario Draghi to be clear) that is not otherwise justifiable. This latter circumstance, after all, has a rather significant significance in terms of its substantial content. In the meantime, because it assumes, and really it could not be otherwise, that the choice of the next candidate for the Quirinal must take place with the Constitution unchanged. So, because, at the moment, if we really want to be honest, and given the numerical insufficiency currently available to the opposing sides, the only name on which a unanimous consensus could probably fall is precisely that of Sergio Mattarella.
Finally, because the possible choice of Mario Draghi would be characterized above all by its programmatic inopportunity due to the pressing need of the parties to recover, on the institutional political level, that minimum of credibility useful for supporting the electoral campaign of the next political competitions of national importance. which, in turn, presuppose, at the base, an important modification of the electoral law following the famous "cut" in the number of parliamentarians. In short: as usual, "so much rumor about nothing". The policy of "confused sciences" continues undisturbed to reign supreme, preferring ambiguous solutions to any hypothesis of real change also because the Italian political system, despite all its irremediable endogenous weaknesses, does not seem to have consciously ever desired, and in any case pursued, the a semi-presidential solution as an escape route from the context of constant "transience". The hypothesis, therefore, evidently extemporaneous, put forward by Minister Giorgetti, and which sparked a debate that seemed dormant, rather has the semblance of a chimera to be opportunistically exhumed in times of difficulty and then immolated again at the altar of the "common good ”Once the government landscape has once again settled on a level of at least apparent stability. All the more so, when, everything must be brought back on the path traced by the monolithic and combined provisions of articles 95, 92 and 94 of the Constitution, in mind of which, respectively, the Prime Minister (Mario Draghi) "directs the general policy of the Government and is responsible for it ... promoting and coordinating the activity of the Ministers ", while the President of the Republic, upstream," appoints the President of the Council of Ministers "in a context where the Government must obtain" the trust of the two Chambers " .
Political system and form of government are not alternative concepts. However strong, the temptation to place them on an identity level is destined to remain so, to survive only at the conceptual level of intent. And then, are we sure, to put it clearly, that the direct election (by the citizens of course) of the Head of State, is really a definitive solution? I don't believe it at all. If it is true, as it is true, that the President of the Republic must guarantee National Unity, being the political guarantor, then the evidence, considering the centrality and impartiality of his "Figure", cannot be linked to any hypothesis of election direct, if only for the difficulty of tracing back to that same "Figure" out of an electoral dispute, an effective function of guarantee and unity for having lost, precisely, in the battle, its necessary third party. All that remains is to return, therefore, with your feet firmly on the ground, and leave these useless prophetic disquisitions to the light-hearted, unsuitable for overcoming any ideological-speculative scrutiny even before being formalistic. Like it or not, that of Sergio Mattarella continues to reign as a usefully expendable “nomen” because it is the only one that is likely to be shared as a unit.
Giuseppina Di Salvatore
(Lawyer - Nuoro)
