Italy’s Next Leader — Antonio Martino, So To Speak

The moment the wires came in with the news of the resignation of Mario Draghi as prime minister of Italy, we picked up the phone to track down our occasional contributor, Antonio Martino, a free market economist — the perfect man of wisdom for Italy’s current crisis. We hadn’t heard from him for a few months, and as we called around this morning we learned that in March Antonio had died.What heartbreaking news, personally and politically. We’d become friends when we were living in Europe in the 1980s and he was writing op-ed pieces for the Wall Street Journal. When we relaunched the Sun, we’d signed him up for a monthly column. He was 79 years old, but how he’d looked forward to an alignment of the stars, so to speak, when there might be an opening for the kind of free market reforms for which he’d so long plumped.The resignation of Mr. Draghi, and the end of his unwieldy unity coalition, could prove to be a golden opportunity for Italy’s right-of-center parties — if early elections are called. It is a moment for which Italy’s conservatives have been waiting, raising hopes that they’ll be able translate support from voters into a parliamentary majority that could propel to power Italy’s first woman premier, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy.Italy’s papers, the AP reports, are “united in their outrage.” La Stampa says “Shame,” La Repubblica, “Italy Betrayed.” Yet the real shame was letting a non-representative legislature cling to power in defiance of the popular will. Italians had quickly soured on the 5-Star Movement after its ostensible populists won a leading position in elections in 2018. The 5-Stars had tried to dodge new elections, in part to keep their legislative seats — and salaries.Mr. Draghi’s coalition government marked an effort to forestall the inevitable. Yet it was the 5-Stars who precipitated the breakup. Now, the center-right parties, led by Ms. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, are “likely to win a clear majority at the next elections,” at least according to a report in Reuters. The rightist coalition would include Forza Italia, led by the three-time ex-premier, Silvio Berlusconi, along with the League, headed by Matteo Salvini.We have previously weighed the leadership prospects of Mr. Salvini, who made a name for himself by his support for President Trump, “strict opposition to illegal immigration and skepticism of the European Union,” as the Wall Street Journal put it. We even wondered if he might lead an Italian version of Brexit. Yet the spotlight for the moment has swung to Ms. Meloni, who has been among those most eager to call new elections.Our own view is that this is a moment for a liberty campaign, particularly one focusing on economics. Whoever takes the reins at Rome will grapple with reviving Italy’s economy, Europe’s third-largest. That will require an embrace of free-market principles, the need for which was long seen by leaders like our own late friend, Antonio Martino, who had been trained at Chicago in economics and understood supply-side principles down to the ground.It is ironic that the high offices in which Martino served included minister of foreign affairs and minister of defense but never as economic tsar. Nor — to the chagrin of those who hoped for Italy to realize its economic potential (and past glory) — were Martino’s hopes fulfilled by the succession of governments and prime ministers, and there were many, that Italy has seen come and go.He loved Italy with all her faults, bringing exactly the right combination of economic principle and affection. In one of the last pieces he wrote for us he talked about encountering Margaret Thatcher at a conference at Florence. They were on a balcony under the Italian sun. As soon as she saw me, he wrote, the Iron Lady exclaimed, “Yours is a beautiful country with a rotten government.” To which the Great Martino replied, “The opposite would be worse!”________Correction: 79 was Antonio Martino’s age when he died; the age was given incorrectly in the bulldog edition.

Italy’s Next Leader — Antonio Martino, So To Speak

Italy’s Next Leader — Antonio Martino, So To Speak

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