2008 Italian government crisis

2008 Italian government crisis
Prodi at the 2007 G8 summit
Date	16 January 2008 – 5 February 2008
Location	Italy
Type	Parliamentary crisis
Cause	Withdrawal of UDEUR's support to Romano Prodi's government
Outcome	Confidence vote lost by the government in the Senate of the Republic Resignation of Prodi Dissolution of Parliament and snap election called

On 24 January 2008, the Italian Senate voted down a motion of confidence in Italian prime minister Romano Prodi, causing the collapse of the second Prodi government.^[1] Prodi's resignation led the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano to ask the president of the Senate, Franco Marini, to attempt to form a caretaker government. After Marini acknowledged an interim government could not be formed due to the lack of a clear majority in the Italian Parliament willing to support it, a snap election was scheduled for 13–14 April 2008.

Background

By the time the crisis started, Prodi had been in office for twenty months, after his centre-left coalition had won a majority of seats in Parliament in the 2006 Italian general election. One of the parties belonging to the coalition was the Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR), led by Clemente Mastella, who Prodi had chosen as his Minister of Justice.^[2]

On 16 January 2008, following media reports about an extensive corruption investigation involving him and his wife, who was also a member of UDEUR, Mastella resigned from the office of minister.^[3] After first promising to keep backing the government, he later withdrew his support: he was reportedly pressured into doing so by the Vatican, which objected to the government's liberal reform, such as its plans to introduce registered partnerships for same-sex couples.^[4]

Mastella's decision arrived a few days after the Constitutional Court of Italy had cleared the hurdle for the holding of referendum on amending the electoral system: the reforms proposed would have made it harder for smaller parties like Mastella's to win seats.^[5]^[6]^[7] As the collapse of the government would have disrupted the referendum, this further cemented Mastella's opinion that triggering a political crisis was necessary.^[8]

Government crisis

UDEUR's defection forced the question of whether Prodi still had enough support in Parliament to govern. On 22 January 2008, Prodi asked for a confidence vote in the country's Chamber of Deputies, which he ended up winning the following day: UDEUR members of Parliament (MPs) decided not to take part in the vote. On 24 January, Prodi asked for a confidence vote in the Senate. The ensuing debate, held between 3pm and 9pm (CET), was heated and dramatic.^[9]

When UDEUR party senator Stefano Cusumano decided he would rebel against the party and back the government, he was verbally harassed by some of his colleagues, who called him an "hysterical faggot" and "traitor", with one of them reportedly going as far as to spit in his face. At this point, Cusumano apparently fainted and was carried out on a stretcher.^[10] Despite Cusumano's defection, the government lost the vote.^[9] After the president of the Senate announced the results, members of the opposition started celebrating, with National Alliance MP Nino Strano going as far as to open a champagne bottle and start eating mortadella; "Mortadella" was a derogatory nickname employed against Prodi.^[11]^[2]

23–24 January 2008 Confidence votes for Prodi II Cabinet
House of Parliament	Vote	Parties	Votes
Chamber of Deputies (Voting: 601 of 630, Majority: 301)	Y Yes	PD, PRC-SE, CI, SD, RNP, IdV, Verdi, SVP, PRI, SocPC	326 / 601
	N No	FI, AN, UDC, LN DCA-NPSI, MpA, LD	275 / 601
	Abstention		0 / 630
Senate of the Republic (Voting: 318 of 322, Majority: 160)	Y Yes	PD, PRC-SE, SDSE, IU-Com-Verdi, Aut., UD-Consum, senators for life^[a]	156 / 318
	N No	Forza Italia, AN, UDC, LN, DCA-PRI-MPA, UDEUR, PSI, LDU	161 / 318
	Abstention	LDU	1 / 318

Aftermath

On 30 January 2008, Napolitano asked Franco Marini to attempt to form a caretaker government, with the goal of avoiding a snap election until a new electoral system could have been in place.^[12] The electoral system that was in place at the time, the Porcellum, had drawn criticism both from the outgoing government and from the opposition, as well as from the general population. A common source of criticism was the fact voters could not pick individual candidates, and were instead forced to choose between slates prepared by parties. Some also felt that the presence of a majority bonus, to be awarded nationally for the Chamber of Deputies, and in each region for the Senate of the Republic, distorted the results of the election and created the risk of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate at odds with each other in the event of a close election.

After Marini was given the task to try to form a new government, two politicians (Bruno Tabacci and Mario Baccini) splintered from the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) to form The Rose for Italy, while two leading members of the Forza Italia faction Liberal Popular Union (Ferdinando Adornato and Angelo Sanza [it]) switched parties and joined the UDC. On 4 February 2008, the Liberal Populars (an UDC faction that favoured a merged with Forza Italia) seceded from UDC, and merged with Silvio Berlusconi's The People of Freedom later the same year.

On 4 February 2008, Marini acknowledged that he had not found a majority willing to back a government led by him,^[13] and resigned his mandate,^[14] mainly due to opposition from the centre-right coalition parties Forza Italia and National Alliance, which, according to polls, were likely to win if a snap election was held, and as such wanted one to be called ^[15] On 6 February 2008, Napolitano dissolved Parliament and called for fresh elections.^[16] The 2008 Italian general election was held on 13–14 April,^[17] together with the administrative elections.^[16] The elections resulted in a decisive victory for Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.^[18]