ROME - Speaking at a primary school in Rome, Italian President Sergio Mattarella announced that he will not be running for another term and will step down when his mandate ends in eight months. “Mine is a demanding job,” he said, “but in eight months my term ends… I am old, in a few months I will be able to rest.”

  In doing so he has triggered the start of a long leadership race. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, has already said that “if Mario Draghi [current Prime Minister] wanted to put himself forward, he would have our firm support.” This would leave Palazzo Chigi empty in February, which would most likely mean, according to political commentators, an election. 

  An election would be the ideal outcome for the League and the ‘post-fascist’ Fratelli d’Italia party given the surprising outcome of the most recent polls in which these two were the most popular parties, with Fratelli d’Italia overtaking the 5 Star Movement (M5S).

  Giorgia Meloni, Fratelli d’Italia leader, in fact already said a few days ago that, “in favour of Draghi is the fact that we would go to vote.”

  Enrico Letta, the leader of the Democratic Party (PD) and the former PM, has said that “January is so far away that we are not able to say at this time what will happen in the elections for President.”

  On a similar note, Federico D’Incà, the M5S Minister for Parliamentary Relations, said that “it is still a bit early to talk about the Presidency… now it is better to concentrate on reforms.”

  As things stand, an election would not be a great outcome for the PD and M5S alliance, as with Draghi out of the picture, Giorgia Meloni is leading the polls for Prime Minister. PD and M5S would no doubt prefer to keep Draghi in power until the next general elections, as both parties are going through a slight transition phase and would be unprepared for an election.

  Letta has only been PD leader for a couple of months, and M5S are in the middle of rebooting the party under the leadership of former PM Giuseppe Conte. Though Conte is next behind Meloni in leadership polls, he only a couple of months ago lost votes of confidence in the two chambers, and so PD and M5S would still no doubt prefer to develop a better and more popular candidate before the 2023 elections.

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