<p><strong>Giuseppe Conte — a political chameleon. </strong>A law professor with no political chops, Conte came to lead a populist <a href="https://time.com/5280993/m5s-lega-italy-populist-coalition/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">coalition </a>of the anti-establishment Five Star party and the right-wing League party in 2018. But when the coalition of convenience collapsed after just 14 months, Conte quickly learned to navigate Italy's choppy politics and stayed on, leading the successive <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/28/europe/italy-democratic-party-five-star-movement-coalition-intl/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">populist-center left government </a>until its recent collapse.</p>
<p><strong>Risk vs return. </strong>Conte decided to resign after a small left-wing party led by former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/matteo-renzi-italia-viva-triggers-government-crisis-coronavirus-recovery-plan-giuseppe-conte/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pulled its support</a> for the government last week, claiming that the prime minister had let technocrats — rather than elected officials — oversee spending of $200 billion in EU relief funds. But in doing so, Conte is now taking a massive gamble.</p>
<p>Politically diminished after losing his majority in the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/italian-pm-giuseppe-conte-survives-confidence-vote-in-senate/a-56277943" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Senate</a> — which will hamstring his ability to pass legislation during the ongoing national emergency — Conte is betting that he can lie low before being reappointed to head Italy's next government.</p>
<p><strong>But the political risks loom large. </strong>If a new government isn't formed in the near term, Italy could go to new elections, which would be a boon for the far-right <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/italy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">League party</a> currently leading the polls. (Though there's no guarantee that the League party, led by right-wing firebrand <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/04/matteo-salvini-is-out-but-not-down/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Matteo Salvini</a>, could form a stable coalition either.)</p>
<p>Alternatively, Italy's president could decide that a third Conte-led government is simply untenable, and tap another technocrat to lead a mix of ideologically-opposed parties that's unlikely to remain in place for the long haul. This would only breed further instability as the government is already struggling to roll out a COVID vaccine (Rome has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/world/pfizer-delay-in-vaccine-italy.html#:~:text=On%20Friday%2C%20Pfizer%20and%20its,process%20to%20increase%20future%20supply." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">threatened</a> to sue Pfizer over drug shortages), as well as to manage the doling out of billions of dollars in pandemic aid from Brussels.</p>
<p><strong>Indeed, the stakes couldn't be higher for pandemic-battered Italy, </strong>which has recorded over 85,000 <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality" target="_blank">deaths from COVID-19,</a> one of the highest per capita death rates in the world. After a series of lockdowns, its tourism-dependent economy has been pummeled, with GDP shrinking by around 10 percent in 2020. </p>
<p>When Italy emerged as a COVID <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/27/world/europe/coronavirus-italy-bergamo.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">epicenter </a>last spring, Prime Minister Conte became a steady presence, addressing the nation frequently, and leading the country's top-down pandemic response. Conte is now betting that the trust he has built with the Italian people (he currently has a solid approval rating of<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/italian-prime-minister-giuseppe-conte-quits-tactical-bid-build-new-n1255641" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> 56 percent)</a> will offset any perceptions of his role in spurring a new chapter of political chaos amid the national emergency. </p>
<p>In Italy's notoriously <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/the-deep-roots-of-italy-coalition-chaos/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">complicated political system</a>, this sort of upheaval is par for the course. But pandemic politics don't reflect business as usual — and if Conte's gamble backfires, it could dash his hopes of making politics his full-time gig.</p>
Read Now
Show less