ITALY: Enrico Letta is the ideal bridge-builder needed in Italy after months of fierce political battles, a political analyst says, after President Napolitano names the centre-left deputy leader as new premier

Record ID: 837885

  • Title: ITALY: Enrico Letta is the ideal bridge-builder needed in Italy after months of fierce political battles, a political analyst says, after President Napolitano names the centre-left deputy leader as new premier
  • Date: 24th April 2013
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (APRIL 24, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PRESIDENTIAL PALACE PEOPLE WALKING ALONG STREET PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME, JAMES WALSTON, SPEAKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME, JAMES WALSTON, SAYING: "He has the essential quality of a new leader at the moment. He is uncontroversial and he can make bridges. He can build bridges both in his political experience, and indeed in his family experience. His uncle is the closest advisor to Berlusconi, he has been on the centre-left now for more than a decade, and he is in a perfect position to bridge those gaps.'' WALSTON SPEAKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME, JAMES WALSTON, SAYING: ''Letta is very much a political appointment. It will be pretty easy to form a government in terms of filling the cabinet posts and the under-secretaries. It will very, very difficult to put up, set up a program which they can both, both sides, or the three elements can agree on. Even more difficult to persuade the opposition, which is Grillo and the left, to actually accept any part of it. So, those are going to be the great difficulties: getting a program together and then implementing it. And then, getting it through parliament.'' WALSTON SPEAKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME, JAMES WALSTON, SAYING: ''It will not be a long government. The first thing that they should do, which the President told them to do and told the previous government to do, is to change the electoral law, which everyone objects to. This is probably the most difficult thing to do, because there is one law at the moment, there are hundred alternatives, which one to choose? That they will have to try and work out. Then they are going to have to deal with the many economic problems. Every one agrees that there should be a recovery package, nobody agrees on how that package is going to be actually put together. So, that will the second or parallel first obstacle that Letta is going to have to deal with. With these sorts of problems the government is not going to last for, certainly no way it can last for five years, it's unlikely to last for more than a year.'' WALSTON SPEAKING TO REPORTER
  • Embargoed: 9th May 2013 13:00
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  • Location: Italy
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  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC2MNUCIVQIOLA5UMJ7ZCAXSSK
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  • Story Text: Italian centre-left politician Enrico Letta, who received a mandate to form a new government from President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday (April 24), may be the right man for the job, said political analyst James Walston in Rome.
    Walston said that Letta can build the bridges that are much needed in Italy's politics.

    "He has the essential quality of a new leader at the moment. He is uncontroversial and he can make bridges. He can build bridges both in his political experience, and indeed in his family experience. His uncle is the closest advisor to Berlusconi, he has been on the centre-left now for more than a decade, and he is in a perfect position to bridge those gaps,'' Walston, who teaches political sciences at the American University of Rome, said.
    Letta, the nephew of Silvio Berlusconi's long-time chief of staff Gianni Letta, is close to former party leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who resigned at the weekend after rebels sabotaged him in the voting for a new president.
    He will be the second youngest prime minister in Italian history and as a staunch pro-European is likely to be welcomed by foreign governments and markets.
    The new government will be backed primarily by Letta's centre-left and the centre-right of Berlusconi, which had hitherto failed to cut a deal following inconclusive elections in late February.
    Although Walston thinks Letta may be the right choice to end a damaging two-month vacuum since the inconclusive elections, he also thinks the path ahead is not likely to be long or smooth for the government he will try to form.
    ''Letta is very much a political appointment. It will be pretty easy to form a government in terms of filling the cabinet posts and the under-secretaries. It will very, very difficult to put up, set up a program which they can both, both sides, or the three elements can agree on. Even more difficult to persuade the opposition, which is Grillo and the left, to actually accept any part of it. So, those are going to be the great difficulties: getting a program together and then implementing it. And then, getting it through parliament,'' Walston said.
    The prime minister designate is expected to quickly select a group of ministers, mixed between politicians and technocrats, under the guidance of Napolitano, whose own unprecedented re-election last weekend opened the way for an end to the crisis.
    Walston thinks Letta's government is unlikely to reach its natural conclusion, at the end of the legislature, in 2018.
    ''It will not be a long government. The first thing that they should do, which the President told them to do and told the previous government to do, is to change the electoral law, which everyone objects to. This is probably the most difficult thing to do, because there is one law at the moment, there are hundred alternatives, which one to choose? That they will have to try and work out. Then they are going to have to deal with the many economic problems. Every one agrees that there should be a recovery package, nobody agrees on how that package is going to be actually put together. So, that will the second or parallel first obstacle that Letta is going to have to deal with. With these sorts of problems the government is not going to last for, certainly no way it can last for five years, it's unlikely to last for more than a year,'' he said.
    The new government led by Letta, a former Christian Democrat from the right wing of his Democratic Party (PD), could go to parliament for a vote of confidence by this weekend.
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