Following the passing of his budget, Mario Monti has quit as Italian Prime Minister. At the moment, it remains unclear whether he’ll continue to lead the government until elections next year.
Many in the Italian establishment—and, I understand, several European leaders—would dearly love Monti to emerge as the leader of a centrist coalition ahead of the election, though as a Senator for Life he can’t run in the election himself. They view the popular endorsement of Monti’s reforms as the best possible result for the stability of the Eurozone.
What seems certain, though, is that the Italian elections will be highly unpredictable. The presence of both a comic and Silvio Berlusconi in the race guarantees that it will not be a conventional contest.
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