Draghi Gov't Has Strong Support, But Geo. Split Could See Resentment Rise

The first opinion polls conducted wholly in the aftermath of Prime Minister Mario Draghi's gov't coming to power show significant support for the administration of the central banker-turned-politician.

• Government approval rating poll: Approve: 65.2%, Disapprove: 34.8%. Quorum, 16/02/21.
• General election poll: Lega: 23.7% (+0.5), PD: 20.2% (-0.5), FdI: 16.9% (+0.8), M5S: 13.9% (-1.1), FI: 8.9% (+1.4), LeU: 3.4% (+0.1), IV: 2.6% (-0.5), A: 2.4% (-0.7), E+: 2% (+0.2), EV: 1.8% (+0.2). Quorum, 16/02/21. Chgs w/ 17-18 Dec 2020.
• One aspect of the new gov't that could see a souring of political goodwill in Italy is the geographic breakdown of ministers. While the Cabinet contains both independents and ministers from six political parties from across the political spectrum, they overwhelmingly hail from wealthy northern Italy.
• A total of 18 ministers come from the north (9 from Lombardy alone), with 2 (including Draghi) from central Italy, and 2 from the poorer south and insular Italy (Sicily and Sardinia).
• This compares to the state of former PM Giuseppe Conte's second term in office at the head of a 5-Star-Democratic Party gov't, where 8 ministers hailed from the north, 2 from central Italy, and 12 (including Conte) from the south.
• The nature of the Draghi gov't as a mixed technocratic-political Cabinet potentially gives the PM more scope to enact unpopular reforms given that he is not going to seek election in the future. Should the impact of economic reforms be felt significantly in the south it could exacerbate already long-standing resentment in that part of the country, which views the north as out-of-touch and self-interested.