Premiership and Leadership from D’Alema to Amato and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the unexpected and rapid end of the second Government led by Massimo D’Alema; the equally unexpected, but less rapid and more complex, birth of the second Government led by Giuliano Amato; and the selection of the Center-Left’s next Prime Ministerial candidate. I argue that the crisis of the D’Alema Government and the formation of the Amato Government were complicated by the crosscutting of two divisive issues: the referendum on the electoral system and the choice of the Center-Left’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2001 election. Conversely, the way in which the Amato Government was created reveals that, in spite of the electoral reform known as mattarellum, the relationships between parties and Parliament, Parliament and Government, and the triangulation among the president, Government and Parliament have changed little, or not at all, in the Italian Republic. Italy’s political-institutional transition is destined to continue until a new political and institutional configuration comes into being. In turn, the ways in which the Olive Tree/Center-Left chose its candidate to Palazzo Chigi show that the coalition has not yet been able to arrive at appropriate and consensual rules.