MNI: Parties Press Draghi To Say If He Will Stay As Italy's PM

Members of Italy's governing coalition are pushing Prime Minister Mario Draghi to clarify whether he wants to step down to become national president early next year, warning that continued uncertainty about his future will make it harder to push through his reform agenda, senior officials from different parties told MNI.

While sources close to Draghi said he has revealed no hint of his intentions, speculation about his next move has intensified since President Sergio Mattarella indicated that he will not seek to extend his term which expires in February.

In the event that the former European Central Bank president does bid to succeed Mattarella, most political parties would prefer the coalition to survive under a new transitional prime minister at least until the national budget at the end of 2022, avoiding the need for early elections, the officials said.

But continued uncertainty could raise tensions within the coalition, which groups parties including the centre-left Democrats, the populist Five-Star Movement and the right-wing League, as they begin to promote alternative presidential candidates. This would divert government energies from key reforms of the courts and public administration, and from implementing projects funded by the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility, officials warned.

"It would be good for us to know if he really is after the presidency or not, to have a clearer picture of the field," a Five-Star source told MNI, adding that his party would probably back Draghi for president even if he is not their preferred candidate.

NO DEAL WITH MATTARELLA

Similarly, a senior official from the Democratic Party said that his grouping would prefer a different president to Draghi, who "is not one of our people", but that the left would not have the numbers to propose an alternative. Other candidates would fail to attract broad support and could even threaten the future of the coalition, he said.

The leader of the centrist Italia Viva party, former prime minister Matteo Renzi, who is now manoeuvring to be a kingmaker in the presidency vote, said at the weekend that rising tensions within the coalition might already be making elections likely next year.

Names of potential presidential candidates should begin to circulate in January, according to Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta, who called for parties to focus on approving the national budget in the meantime.

While replacing Mattarella would mean Draghi's leaving the helm of a government which could last until elections due in 2023, markets would find reassurance that the presidency's broad powers to influence future administrations would be in the hands of the former ECB chief.

The sitting president last week quashed speculation that he would stay in office for another year, which would Draghi to serve out his term as prime minister before becoming head of state. While the last president, Giorgio Napolitano, extended his term, Mattarella, a jurist who is likely to play an important role in the appointment of his successor, considers that this would go against the constitution.

Draghi himself, upon appointment as prime minister, had seemed to expect the president to stay on longer, with a former advisor during his time at the Bank of Italy speaking to MNI of a possible deal with Mattarella.