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PROFILE: Who is Matteo Renzi, the ‘wrecker’ of Italian politics?

Former prime minister Matteo Renzi has reclaimed the spotlight with a manoeuvre that risks toppling the government - and leaving him more unpopular than before.

PROFILE: Who is Matteo Renzi, the 'wrecker' of Italian politics?
Matteo Renzi holds a press conference on Wednesday evening. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/POOL/AFP
After weeks criticising the centre-left coalition over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Renzi withdrew his Italia Viva party from the government last week, risking its collapse.
 
Critics accuse him of seeking to destabilise Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's administration in a bid for bigger cabinet roles – at the worst  possible time.
 
 
But he claims he is following his conscience as Italy grapples with more than 82,000 dead from the coronavirus pandemic, a dire economic outlook, and an increasingly vocal opposition.
 
As yet it seems unclear how Renzi might benefit, with many of his former coalition partners vowing to never share power with him again, and his party logging just 2.4 percent of support in opinion polls.
 
 
Boy scout turned 'Wrecker'
 
Renzi rose though Italian politics as a youthful reformer, out to shake up Italy's political establishment.
 
However, he soon earned the nickname “Rottamatore” (“the Wrecker” or “the Scrapper”).
 
Serving as mayor of his native Florence from 2009 to 2014, he raised great hopes when he was elected leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in December 2013.
 
A former boy scout, without the ex-Communist baggage and grey demeanour of most of his predecessors, Renzi exuded self-confidence and dynamism.
 
In 2014, at the age of 39, he became Italy's youngest-ever prime minister since Benito Mussolini, and led the PD to a historic win in European Parliament elections, with almost 41 percent of the votes.
 
Matteo Renzi as newly-appointed prime minister in 2014. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
 
But then the lucky streak of a man who, as a teen, won 48 million lira (24,800 euros) on the Wheel of Fortune TV quiz show began to run out.
 
Under Renzi, Italy liberalised labour laws, modernised the school system, legalised same-sex unions and cut taxes on low-income workers.
 
But his centrist policies and increasingly arrogant style antagonised trade unions and the left-wing of his party, as well as the broader public.
 
Twists and turns
 
In December 2016, he led a referendum campaign for constitutional reforms, which he hoped would bring some stability to Italy's notoriously volatile politics.
 
But it backfired, and when he was defeated by a 59-41 percent margin, he resigned.
 
Despite promising to quit politics over that failure, he stayed on as the PD's party leader – and in recent years has been involved in a remarkable series of political twists and turns.
 

 
After the 2018 elections, he opposed moves to form a coalition between the PD and the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), who went on to join up with the far-right League.
 
But after that coalition collapsed, he helped negotiate a M5S-PD government – before stunning observers by leaving it, and setting up his own party, Italia
Viva.
 
 
The centrist group has flopped in opinion polls, prompting accusations that Renzi's attacks on the current government are motivated by a desire to get back some of the political power he has lost.
 
The most serious charge he levelled against Conte was that the premier lacked vision on how to spend the more than 200-billion-euros ($241 billion) in EU recovery funds.
 
 
The prime minister is trying to keep his government together without Renzi, going to the Senate on Tuesday for a vote of confidence – in which Italia
Viva will abstain.
 
Renzi continues to insist his motives are pure, declaring Monday: “When the fog of fake news clears… we will understand that the problem is not my character, but the failure to reopen schools, high Covid mortality, the most serious economic crisis in Europe, the vaccination delay, a Recovery Plan not worthy of our country…”
 
By AFP's Alexandria Sage and Alvise Armellini
Matteo Renzi listens to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte addressing senators on January 19th, 2021. Photo: AFP

Member comments

  1. I dont like Renzi at all but in this case i agree with him he has called out a totally incompetent and unfit to govern goverment who do nothing more than argue with each other all the time.
    Conte has more lives than a cat.

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TERRORISM

Italy on maximum terror alert over Easter after Moscow attack

Italy was to increase surveillance in busy areas ahead of the Easter holidays and following the bombing of a Moscow concert hall, ministers agreed on Monday.

Italy on maximum terror alert over Easter after Moscow attack

Italy’s national committee for public security, chaired by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, on Monday said anti-terrorism monitoring in Italy must be strengthened ahead of the Easter holidays, with more surveillance to be carried out at popular tourist spots and at “sensitive sites”.

The committee agreed on “the importance of continuing monitoring activity, including online, by police and intelligence forces for the identification of possible risk situations” in Italy, reported news agency Ansa.

The security meeting was convened following the terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday where armed men opened fire and set the building ablaze, killing at least 133 people.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had stressed to the public on Sunday that Italy faced “no concrete risk” and said the country’s security and law enforcement services were “always on the alert to prevent any attack.”

“During the Easter holidays you will need to be very careful. We will always do the utmost to ensure the safety of citizens and tourists,” Tajani said, speaking on national broadcaster Rai’s current affairs show Restart.

READ ALSO: Terror alerts: Should I be worried about travelling to Italy?

The fight against terrorism “has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine,” the minister continued.

“We support Ukraine” as an invaded country in which international law has been violated, he said, “but as the Italian government we have expressed our condemnation of the attack [in Moscow] and closeness to the families of the victims and the survivors”.

Cabinet Secretary Alfredo Mantovano said on the same programme that the main terrorist threat Italy faced at the moment was mainly from “lone wolves” and “not so much from organised groups.”

“I believe that a group like the one that acted in the Moscow attack, which must have been trained and had logistical support, would be intercepted sooner in Italy,” he said.

“The most worrying threat” in Italy was online recruitment, he said, noting that propaganda was closely monitored.

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