The year of Italy: from Draghi to Meloni everything that has happened in 2022

A 2022 full of symbolic images for Italy which began the year with a government of national unity led by the former ECB President Mario Draghi and ends it with the female prime minister, the right-wing Giorgia Meloni, which a few months ago was still an almost residual force of the opposition. The election of the President of the Republic already augured a political earthquake when last January the parties elected in the parliamentary arc had to agree on a name and after a week of meetings, pacts and snipers -votes outside the discipline of match- unexpectedly Sergio Mattarella had to accept re-election, another seven years in office, before the incapacity of the political formations to converge on another name. He was the final wild card, the name that satisfied everyone and that trick had to be used despite the fact that Mattarella had indicated on more than one occasion that the time for rest had come for him. Politics showed its best tricks in a year that has been more “Italian” than ever.

In that hot summer of political crisis, climate change showed its worst face. In July the calving of the Marmolada glacier, in the Dolomites, it took the lives of more than ten people. Meanwhile, the drought put crops at risk throughout Italy, several municipalities such as Milan had to close the sources. The temperatures reached records in many points precisely in the summer of energy savings where from the north to the south of the country they tried to make the use of air conditioners moderate, because the conflict continued to squeeze the European governments on the energy issue with excessive prices and a market still dependent on Russia. Among all the disasters generated by adverse climatic phenomena there were floods like those of the Marches in September, with several victims or the mountain and mudslide just a month ago on the island of Ischia which claimed the lives of another ten people.

The last quarter of the year arrived with the unexpected electoral date, on September 25 in which Giorgia Meloni swept the elections. The one who would become a few weeks later the first Italian woman prime minister, with a political past in the post-fascist militancy that she promised to have left behind to reincarnate a new right. The Italians gave him the opportunity to do so, but the consensus on the street has a very low proportion despite the fact that the Brothers of Italy are the first party if we take into account that abstentionism It was, on this occasion, one of the highest in the history of the Republic, around 40%.