Italy enters a complex but familiar transition phase

ROME — For once, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi does not seem to be in a hurry.

A day after Italians overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional overhaul on which he had staked his tenure, Mr Renzi, 41, made a sombre visit Monday evening to the Quirinal, once home to popes and now the President of the Italian Republic, to formally tender his resignation. The President, Mr Sergio Mattarella, asked him to postpone for a few days while his government finished a Budget. Mr Renzi, usually in a rush, agreed.

For Italians, who have seen 63 governments in 70 years, Monday’s resignation made for a ritual as familiar as the morning espresso, even as the stakes seemed far higher this time. The immediate question is whether the President, usually a ceremonial figure, would form a caretaker government staffed with technocrats. Or convince rival political parties to form a coalition government. Or call for new elections in 2017.

Elections might be most satisfying for a restive public, except that an electoral law approved last year is under court review and may now be obsolete after Sunday’s referendum.

For Italians who keep insisting they are hungry for change, Monday’s vote had the effect of ushering in an Italian Groundhog Day.

“It’s not a new thing,” said Mr Massimo Franco, a political columnist at the Corriere della Sera newspaper who said the transition towards new elections would probably last at least eight months but as long as a year-and-a-half. “Italians aren’t shocked.”

Instead, Italians found themselves drafting another political autopsy report, this time to understand what did Mr Renzi in. Some pointed to a sluggish economy that failed to deliver the jobs and prosperity he promised. Others spoke about their sincere disagreements with Mr Renzi’s constitutional overhaul. Many attributed Mr Renzi’s downfall to haughtiness, and to tying his political fate to that of the referendum. And just about everyone agreed that a strong anti-establishment wave had washed Mr Renzi out.

But unlike in Austria, France and Germany, where populist parties have taken on a right-wing and anti-immigrant edge, Italy’s homegrown anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement (M5S), is distinct. An Internet-based and ideologically unorthodox party, with socially liberal, economically populist and tough law-and-order views, M5S is led by comedian Beppe Grillo. In recent months, the party has won mayoral elections in crucial cities like Rome and Turin, vigorously campaigning against Mr Renzi’s overhaul. On Monday, they celebrated his resignation and acted as the de facto victors of the referendum.

Yet anointing the Five Star Movement as Italy’s next power overlooks the complexities of Italian politics. To overthrow Mr Renzi, the Five Star Movement made common cause with other parties aligned with the Italian establishment, including lifelong officeholders and others such as former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, as well as leftist leaders and recipients of public benefits and labour protections.

But now that Mr Renzi is out of the way, those powerful interests of the left, right and centre appear poised to return to business as usual, dividing power among themselves and probably shutting out the Five Star Movement, which refuses, per its party’s purity laws, to form political alliances.

“They think they won but they are actually the losers,” said Professor Roberto D’Alimonte, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome who has advised Mr Renzi on changing election laws. “They don’t want to make alliances. They are stuck.”

This summer, as he was already campaigning to pass the constitutional changes, Mr Renzi noted the irony of Italy’s populists campaigning against him. “Paradoxically, if the Five Star Movement wanted to govern, it would be in their interest to vote for this reform,” Mr Renzi said in an interview. “But they like to say ‘No.’ ”

For months, Five Star leaders excoriated the so-called Italicum, the electoral law Mr Renzi had passed to bring more stability for Italian governments. It created a runoff system between national candidates that awarded the winner a bonus of seats in the Lower House of Parliament. Those extra seats gave the electoral winner a parliamentary majority and essentially ensured a full, collapse-proof term.

But the electoral law was intended to complement the constitutional changes on Sunday’s ballot, which would have streamlined Italy’s Parliament by reducing the power and size of the Senate. Now that the constitutional changes have been defeated, the new electoral law is also moot.

Before Sunday, Mr Grillo and other members of his party called Mr Renzi’s electoral law, now under review by Italy’s constitutional court, an invitation to dictatorship. But immediately after Mr Renzi’s defeat, Mr Grillo had changed his mind.

“The fastest, most realistic and concrete thing to do is immediately hold a vote with the law that already exists, the Italicum,” Mr Grillo wrote on his blog, while acknowledging “we’ve always criticised this law.”

The more likely option now, according to several analysts here, is that Mr Mattarella would form a new coalition government most likely led by a member of Mr Renzi’s Cabinet. On Monday, a few names began to surface as possible successors to Mr Renzi, including Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan; Culture Minister Dario Franceschini; or Mr Pietro Grasso, president of the Senate.

It has been a long time since Italy has directly elected its leader. Mr Renzi came to power in an internal party coup in 2014. Mr Franco, the columnist, argued that part of the reason so many Italians turned out to reject Mr Renzi’s reform was that they believed it was his attempt to use the constitutional overhaul to “cancel the original sin that he wasn’t elected”.

The last time the country directly chose its Prime Minister was in 2008, when it voted for Mr Berlusconi.

Mr Mattarella will almost surely demand that the caretaker government he appoints reconcile the electoral law before he sets a date for early elections.

When that time comes, Mr Renzi could very well return to power. He lost 60 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s referendum — yet that “No” vote belongs to many parties, not just one.

Mr Renzi showed that the other 40 per cent of Italians are either behind him or his reform agenda.

For now, Mr Renzi’s immediate fight, should he choose to remain relevant, is to retain his position as leader of his Democratic Party.

“It would be more destabilising if he steps down as party leader than as prime minister,” Prof D’Alimonte said.

That all seemed very far away on Monday night. Hours after delivering a concession speech that is all but unheard-of in Italy, complete with congratulations to the victors, tears and odes to a spouse and children, Mr Renzi’s sedan slipped into the president’s residence.

In Mr Mattarella’s private study, after an efficient, half-hour meeting, Mr Renzi left with his resignation, for now, deferred. THE NEW YORK TIMES