The Economist UK - 31.08.2019

The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 Europe 31

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G

iuseppe conteis poised to boldly go

where no Italian technocrat has gone

before. Independent prime ministers in

Italy either bow out at the end of their

governments or get shoved aside by the

voters if they try to hang on. But on Au-

gust 29th President Sergio Mattarella

asked Mr Conte to form a second co-

alition, this time teaming the anti-estab-

lishment Five Star Movement (m 5 s) with

the centre-left Democratic Party (pd).

Mr Conte has spent 14 months head-

ing an all-populist government that

yoked the Five Stars to the hard-right

Northern League. The League’s leader,

Matteo Salvini, ill-advisedly pulled the

rug this month, thinking it was under his

allies’ feet, when in fact it was under his

own. Them 5 shas around a third of the

seats in parliament, and can command a

majority with the help of thepdand

independent lawmakers.

In his resignation speech on August

20th, the popular Mr Conte excoriated

the League leader to his face, calling him

disloyal and irresponsible. The former

university law teacher’s performance

endeared him to the Five Stars, to the

point that they made his continuance in

office a condition for a deal with thepd.

A second Conte government will

please officials in Brussels. They feared

that Mr Salvini’s plans for drastic tax

cuts, in a country already saddled with a

debt equivalent to 134% ofgdp, could

panic the markets and jeopardise the

euro. It will also delight Donald Trump,

who tweeted his support for his “highly

respected” buddy, “Giuseppi” (sic).

But there are snags. Them 5 sintends

to seek its members’ approval in an

online ballot. If they vote against the

alliance, it will probably force a general

election. Italy can ill afford that. It could

take until November to hold the vote, and

parliament has to approve a budget by

year’s end. That will be tricky: €23bn

($25bn) in deficit cuts are needed to meet

eulimits. Otherwise, value-added-tax

rates will have to be raised.

Moreover, in over a week of negotia-

tion, the Five Stars and pdseemed to

have agreed on little more than the prime

minister’s name. The m 5 s’s founder,

Beppe Grillo, suggested the cabinet

might include other technocrats.

Perhaps most important, the two

parties have sharply different cultures.

Though most Five Star activists lean left,

they disdain the liberal elite and see the

pdas its embodiment. That was not a

problem with the League, though it

backed some policies they disliked. The

fate of Italy’s new government may show

which is the stronger bond—ideological

affinity or a populist temperament.

Not fallen yet

Italy’s government

ROME

The FiveStar Movement finds a new coalition

Still on the line

recently hurting the cdu’s election cam-

paigns by condemning a prominent right-

wing member popular in the east. Her mis-

steps mean she is no longer a shoo-in to

run as the party’s candidate for chancellor

at the next election. Should the cdudo

poorly this weekend, it is Ms Kramp-Kar-

renbauer who will take the blame rather

than Mrs Merkel, who has removed herself

from the election fray. The new party

leader’s rivals are circling.

The gloom in Berlin also infects the lo-

cal contests. The national spd’s weakness

is “of course a burden”, admits Mr Woidke.

In fact, he and Mr Kretschmer have good

economic stories to tell in their own states.

But it is hard to gain purchase in such a fe-

brile political atmosphere. After many

years of stability under Mrs Merkel, there is

a whiff of change in the air. 7

T

he brutalmurders of Jan Kuciak, an

investigative journalist, and his fiancée

in February 2018 quickly turned Slovakia’s

politics upside-down. Tens of thousands of

Slovaks took to the streets, suspecting the

killings were linked to political corruption.

“We just thought our politicians’ behaviour

was fishy,” says Jan Galik, a 31-year-old it

specialist who helped found “For a Decent

Slovakia”, one of the main groups behind

the demonstrations. The protests forced

police to mount a serious investigation and

ultimately drove the former prime minis-

ter, Robert Fico, to resign.

Over the past month, the fishy smell has

grown ever stronger. Slovak newspapers

have been publishing excerpts from hun-

dreds of pages of instant messages suppos-

edly leaked from a police report on Marian

Kocner, a businessman charged with or-

dering the murders. The messages purport

to show Mr Kocner assiduously trying to

help Mr Fico’s Smer-sdparty stay in power.

“Otherwise, we will all end up in jail,” reads

one message to a long-time associate. Oth-

ers refer to meetings with “Squarehead”

(Mr Fico’s nickname on satirical websites).

Another message boasts of having

breakfast in the Maldives shortly after the

murders with Bela Bugar, chairman of

Smer-sd’s junior coalition partner, Most-

Hid. Addressed to a woman who also faces

charges connected to the murders, it prom-

ises to tell Mr Bugar “what I would do in his

place”. Most-Hid has been criticised for re-

fusing to pull out of the coalition, thus

keeping Smer-sdin power.

Mr Bugar says his party’s actions have

nothing to do with Mr Kocner, whom he

calls “evil”. As for Mr Fico, he denies that

the meetings to which the messages refer

took place. Mr Kocner rejects the charge

that he was involved in the murder, while

his lawyer notes that it is hard to prove his

client sent the messages (though he does

not explicitly deny it).

Some pundits suggest Mr Kocner may

have boasted of meetings that never hap-

pened, to impress the people he was corre-

sponding with. Prosecutors confirm that

they have Mr Kocner’s messages, but not

that those published are genuine. Still,

they seem to take at least some of the infor-

mation in them seriously. In one message,

Mr Kocner refers to an official at the minis-

try of justice as his “monkey”. Last week the

police seized that official’s mobile phone.

For now, clean-government forces have

the upper hand in Slovakia. In June an envi-

ronmental and anti-corruption campaign-

er, Zuzana Caputova, took office as presi-

dent. But the country has a long way to go.

“For a Decent Slovakia” plans to take to the

streets again in September. “We want to re-

mind people that the fight for freedom is a

never-ending process,” says Mr Galik. 7

Texts linked to a murder spread fear in

political circles

Corruption in Slovakia

Murky messages