Presidential consultations begin in attempt to form government in Italy

Italian president Sergio Mattarella last night initiated three days of consultations aimed at appointing a successor to prime minister Matteo Renzi, who formally resigned on Wednesday in the wake of his heavy defeat in Sunday's reform referendum.

Following established practice, Mr Mattarella began his consultations by meeting with with his predecessor, president emeritus Giorgio Napolitano and with the speakers of both houses of parliament, Laura Boldrini and Pietro Grasso. Over the next three days, the president will meet 23 different parliamentary groups as he attempts to find a new prime minister.

While outgoing prime minister Renzi reportedly favours either the appointment of a cross-party “government of responsibility” or an immediate early general election, Mr Mattarella is not convinced. The president, who has the final say in this process, argues that, as things stand, with two different electoral laws applicable in both houses, an early election is “inconceivable”.

Therefore, Mr Mattarella will be working hard to form a cross-party executive that can command a solid enough parliamentary majority to remain in office until the natural closure of this legislature in the spring of 2018, and in the meantime introduce new electoral legislation. While opposition forces, such as the Five Star protest movement and the Northern League, are clamouring for an early general election, the president may be able to count on a helping hand from an unexpected source, namely the leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi.

Even though he is currently ineligible for public office for six years, following his 2013 ban from parliament in the wake of a tax fraud conviction, Mr Berlusconi may be part of the Forza Italia delegation that meets Mr Mattarella on Saturday afternoon. The 80-year-old three-time prime minister Mr Berlusconi is believed to favour the formation of a government that goes all the way to 2018.    In return for his support for such an executive, he has posited two conditions: no reappointment of Mr Renzi and the inclusion of a proportional representation element in any new electoral system. (Incidentally, Mr Berlusconi is currently appealing his suspension from public office in the European Court of Human Rights.)

As for Mr Renzi, he has thus far managed to avoid confrontation with his internal critics in the Partito Democratico (PD). Mr Renzi cut short a PD party meeting on Wednesday by proposing that all post-referendum analysis and internal debate would be put on hold until the current government crisis had been resolved.

Saying that he was looking forward to a PlayStation game with his children and to celebrating his 86-year-old grandmother’s birthday yesterday, Mr Renzi indicated that a break from politics might be welcome. He did concede, however, that when the PD party gets round to discussing Sunday’s defeat, the debate was likely to be “very hard”.

Finally, Sunday’s referendum result registered its first negative market impact late on Wednesday when the Moody’s ratings agency downgraded its outlook for Italy’s sovereign debt from stable to negative, arguing that the result had slowed progress toward economic and fiscal reforms.