42 Europe The EconomistFebruary 6th 2021
2 Mr Draghi, a former governor of the Bank of
Italy. Mr Ciampi took office in 1993 as the
country’s post-war order, dominated by
Christian Democrats and Communists,
was falling apart. He remained at the helm
until an election the following year. But
after the winner of that election, Silvio Ber-
lusconi, was ousted in 1995, another Bank
of Italy alumnus, Lamberto Dini, was
tapped to head a government composed
mostly of technocrats like himself. The
country’s next existential trauma, an effect
and a cause of the wider euro crisis, wafted
a former European commissioner, Mario
Monti, to power in 2011. Then, after the 2018
elections, when the leaders of the hard-
right Northern League and the anti-estab-
lishment Five Star Movement (m 5 s) were
unable to agree on who should get the top
job, they gave it to Mr Conte, an obscure law
professor. He survived to lead a second
government that yoked the m 5 sto the cen-
tre-left Democratic Party (pd).
The alternative to a technocratic prime
minister, and the normal response in most
democracies, is the ballot box. Mr Matta-
rella argued, with some justification, that
the challenges facing Italy are too urgent to
allow for an early vote. But, in doing so, he
highlighted another shortcoming: Italy’s
cumbersome procedures for transferring
power. The president recalled that it had
taken five months to install a government
in 2018 and four months in 2013.
Mr Mattarella says he wants a high-pro-
file administration that “ought not be iden-
tified with any one political formula”. That
does not necessarily mean the next cabinet
should be purely technocratic. Italy’s non-
party prime ministers have not all headed
non-party governments: Mr Ciampi’s cabi-
net and Mr Conte’s two governments were
made up of politicians.
All, however, have suffered from two
shared weaknesses. Their leaders have
been new to the roughhouse of Italian do-
mestic politics. And, however technocrat-
ic, they have depended for their survival on
the goodwill of politicians in what are of-
ten ill-assorted parliamentary coalitions.
The first signs were that Mr Draghi
could win the support of Italia Viva, the pd
and Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, but that he
faced opposition from the m 5 sand from
the two most radical groups in parliament:
the Free and Equal party on the left and the
Brothers of Italy on the right. It was unclear
whether the League would back him ex-
plicitly, or implicitly by means of absten-
tion. But Mr Draghi risks finding himself
dependent on the support of two parties,
the pdand the League, with fundamentally
different ideas on how best to govern Italy.
It is a problem with which his technocratic
predecessors became wearily familiar and
one that helps to explain the brevity of
their governments. On average they lasted
for a year and four months. 7J
udging by thesecurity measures, you
would have thought Moscow was experi-
encing a terrorist attack. Police in riot gear
surrounded the capital’s main court and
blocked the approaches. Muscovites sus-
pected of being protesters were whisked
away and bundled into police vans. By
lunchtime 350 people, including journal-
ists, had been detained, adding to nearly
2,000 arrested during protests two days
earlier. Jails and detention centres filled up
so fast that many demonstrators were held
in police vans in freezing temperatures
without food or water for up to 40 hours.
The reason for the mass arrests was
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader,
who had returned last month from Ger-
many, where he had been treated for poi-
soning, ordered, he says, by President
Vladimir Putin himself. On February 2nd
Mr Navalny was put in a glass cage inside
the Moscow court and sentenced to nearly
three years in prison. This converted the
original, suspended, sentence handed
down in 2014 into a trumped-up case de-
signed to stop him from standing for elec-
tion. The European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg had previously exonerated
him of that charge and made Russia pay
him compensation.
The latest proceeding was a mockery of
the law. Mr Navalny denounced it as “one
man’s hatred and fear...I mortally offended[Mr Putin] by surviving. And then I com-
mitted an even more serious offence: I
didn’t run and hide.” Worse still, Mr Na-
valny had revealed that Russia’s Federal Se-
curity Service (fsb) had smeared his under-
pants with Novichok, a toxin. Mr Putin
would go down in history not as a global
statesman but as “Vladimir the Underpants
Poisoner”, said Mr Navalny. His speech,
blanked out by state television, was broad-
cast by tv Rain, an independent internet
channel, and watched by nearly 9m people
on YouTube. Within minutes of the sen-
tencing, Mr Navalny’s team had called peo-
ple out onto the streets.
Taking no chances, riot police closed
metro stations and took over the main
squares and crossroads. Videos that spread
instantly on social media showed small
groups of mostly young and peaceful Mus-
covites walking through the centre chant-
ing “Navalny” and being shoved into side
streets where they were beaten.
The poisoning of Mr Navalny made it
clear that the fsb, rather than the civilian
technocrats who were once responsible for
domestic politics, are now dominant, says
Alexei Venediktov of Echo Moskvy, an inde-
pendent radio station. “They describe Na-
valny as ‘the engine’ and ‘the banner’ of the
protest movement.” Locking him up will
disable the engine, they reckon.
They also plan to sully the banner by
portraying Mr Navalny as a foreign agent
planted by the West to overthrow Mr Pu-
tin’s regime. They cite the protests by
democratic countries, including America,
Britain and Germany, and the attendance
of their ambassadors at Mr Navalny’s sen-
tencing, as proof of its determination to
hobble Russia. Mr Navalny’s call for sanc-
tions against Mr Putin’s friends could bring
a new charge of treason that carries a sen-
tence of up to 20 years. Prosecutors are also
working on a new fraud case, alleging that
Mr Navalny has stolen donations to his
own anti-corruption foundation.
Yet by unleashing violence against
peaceful protesters, the Kremlin is helping
Mr Navalny in his main task: undermining
Mr Putin’s legitimacy. The president is
clearly rattled by Mr Navalny’s bold return
and his explosive two-hour video, which
was watched by 100m people, showing a
vast secret palace allegedly belonging to Mr
Putin. The president is now trusted by only
29% of the population, says a recent poll by
the Levada Centre, a fall of 20 percentage
points since he was re-elected in 2018. For
this, blame corruption, a stagnant econ-
omy and a shift in media consumption. Mr
Putin dominates state tv. But most Rus-
sians under the age of 40 get their news and
views from the internet, where Mr Navalny
is strong. The Kremlin would like his sen-
tencing to display its limitless power. In
fact it, enhances Mr Navalny’s moral stat-
ure at Mr Putin’s expense. 7MOSCOW
The sentencing of Alexei Navalny to
prison may yet weaken Vladimir PutinRussiaA mockery of
justice
The Kremlin tries to win hearts and minds