IN recent months, one has often heard people talking about the growing discontent in the country. Likewise, one has also heard people on television screens talking about the possibility of having some sort of non-political government. As an overseas Pakistani, I wonder if democracy in the motherland is under threat. On second thought, however, a government of national unity is not such a bad idea, and is resorted to even in mature democracies. I live in Italy and have seen two situations where the parliamentary majority supporting the government disintegrated in the face of growing problems and was replaced by a setup of technocrats.

In November 2011, Italy was facing a major external debt crisis and the interest premiums on its national debts were rising rapidly. The government, led by the flamboyant Silvio Berlusconi, resigned and the president of the republic called upon outsider Mario Monti, a Yale-educated economist, a university professor and a European Union (EU) commissioner, to form a new government.

The second technocrat government I have seen is the current one, under Mario Draghi, which has been in power since February 2021. A PhD. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Draghi has been an academic, the head of Italy’s central bank and then the president of the European Central Bank. He was asked by the president to form the government after the ruling coalition had fallen apart.

There are several differences between the two governments. In its composition, for instance, the Monti government was made up entirely of non-politicians, whereas the Draghi cabinet is primarily composed of representatives of the main political parties. These parties are normally at each other’s throats, but have found it expedient to make tactical peace under the aegis of the rather authoritarian Draghi.

Despite these and other differences, both the governments, by and large, managed to meet their objectives. Monti and his team governed for under a year-and-a-half, but during that short time stabilised the economy and introduced a number of much needed reforms. The Draghi government has also proved effective in handling the pandemic, formulating a recovery plan worth 200 billion euros, and moving forward with a comprehensive package of reforms.

More critically, during the tenure of both the governments, there was no mass-scale feeling that democracy was, or is, under threat. Parliament continued to play its sovereign role; key legislation, such as the budget, had to be approved by the two houses; and at any time a motion of no confidence could be tabled in parliament to bring down the government and to hold fresh elections.

We can surely study the Italian experi-ments in a bit of detail and subsequently mould it the way that suits the country.

Daud Khan
Rome, Italy

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2022