European political history is fraught with dictatorships, wars and revolutions. So is the story of Italy which initially a monarchy, suffered through Marxist revolution briefly and then faced the war under a dictatorship. Italy has seen a lot of changes in government, dissolution of parliaments and as a result ever-increasing economic problems. Currently, Italy is a centralised state with the president serving 7 years in one tern and houses of Parliament serving 5 years. The president is chosen by an electoral college which consists of both regional members and houses parliament members. The prime minister is in turn appointed by the president and confirmed by the parliament.
A brief timeline of Italy’s government are:
Until 1946, Italy was actually a monarchy ruled by one of the oldest Royal families in the world ‘œHouse of Savoy’.
Italy suffered 21 years of dictatorship from 1922 to 1943, under Mussolini, who had the monarch’s support, during the time of World War 2.
It was by popular referendum that Italy became a democratic republic on June 2, 1946.
After the war, there was major political instability with only the Christian Democratic Party keeping the country fairly steady.
Fed up with corruption, debt and scandals, the people of Italy demanded political reform in 1992.
It is during that time that the ex-prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi started a populist and free-market movement called ‘œForza Italia’ which means ‘œForward Italy’.
The political party scene changed radically between 1992 and 1997 with the Christian Democratic Party dissolved; support for the socialists decreased; new parties like the Italians People Party and Christian Democratic Centre Party emerged as did the popular Forza Italia.
Today the parties can roughly be divided in two major divisions: the Olive tree coalition which is formed by the centre left parties and the Freedom Pole coalition brought together by the coalition right parties.
Parties in power rise and fall based on other parties providing or withdrawing support. For example, in 2008, the Prodi Government lost power when UDEUR, another small party withdrew support and Silvio Berlusconi won because of an alliance between his party Forza Italia and National Alliance.
Berlusconi stepped down from his post in 2011 in protest against the economic stability law passed by the parliament after which the current president Giorgio Napolitano came into office and has been president since making him the longest serving president of Italy. He is currently serving is his second term as president.
The current prime minister is Matteo Renzi who is the youngest prime minister of the country since Mussolini.
The current president and prime minister are campaigning hard to form a coalition government among centre left and centre right to make the government stronger and focus on more important concerns like solving Italy’s debt issues.
Despite its ups and downs, Italy has been at the forefront of political unification. It still faces issues like economic differences between Southern and Northern Italy, corruption etc. which the government is trying to deal with slowly and steadily.
