Italy's President Rejects Premier Draghi’s Resignation

 Italy hit a period of dizzying political turbulence Thursday, with Prime Minister Mario Draghi saying he would resign and make way for a new government, only for the country’s president to reject Draghi’s resignation and ask him to reassess whether he can hold a majority together.

President Sergio Mattarella invited Draghi back to Parliament next week, a request that will touch off days of backroom negotiations among parties and potentially lead to some peacemaking — or a more decisive rupture.

Draghi for 17 months has been a rare unifying force in Italian politics, commanding a wide left-to-right backing. But that unity has faltered as pandemic concerns have been replaced by inflation, record drought and war in Europe — and as some political parties perceive they might fare better in early elections.

It remains far from certain whether Draghi will hang on as prime minister, or whether Italy will slide into new elections that heavily favor groups from the center-right and far right. But the chaos was a reminder of how quickly political fortunes can rise and fall in Italy, and how much the country might change if Draghi — a pro-Europe leader who has advocated for a firm response toward Russia — exits the scene.

Even if Italy pieces together a solution, it’s for the short-term. Draghi was always a placeholder leader, though one with significant clout, and Italy has to hold general elections by the early months of next year. The early-stage electioneering has already widened the wedges between the parties in Draghi’s coalition, and the tensions broke out into the open Thursday.

Italy was pushed to the brink not by a global or national crisis but by a debate over a proposed trash incinerator in Rome.

“Absurd,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University.

Senators from one of the biggest parties in Draghi’s coalition — the Five Star Movement — boycotted a confidence motion ostensibly because it was linked to a bill that contained a provision for the incinerator, a project the party opposes on environmental grounds. Other politicians have called it a solution to an urgent — and putrid — problem in a city that has become synonymous with haphazard trash collection, overflowing dumpsters and seagulls that swoop in to feast on the rubbish.

Draghi had made clear he would interpret a walkout as a vote against the unity government he leads. The Five Stars — a onetime populist party that has hemorrhaged most of its support — went ahead, anyway. And so Draghi offered his resignation, saying that the trust underpinning the government had come “undone” and that the conditions for a functional government “no longer exist.”