By Eric J. Lyman
ROME, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The head of Italy's largest political party has called for the country's president to be impeached, a complex and infrequently used process that could assure that the current spate of political instability could drag on for months.
No Italian president has ever successfully been impeached, though impeachment cases have been opened against four presidents since the end of World War II.
Luigi Di Maio, the 31-year-old head of the populist Five-Star Movement (M5S), would like to bring the fifth case, accusing President Sergio Mattarella of triggering an "institutional crisis" by refusing to accept the nomination of Paolo Savona, a deeply euro-skeptic economist, as minister of finance.
Of the four previous impeachment cases, the first three were sparked by allegations of malfeasance not directly related to the presidency, according to Vera Capperucci, a professor of contemporary history at Rome's LUISS University. But the fourth, Capperucci said, emerged in 2014 against Mattarella's predecessor Giorgio Napolitano and was politically motivated.
Like the threatened case against Mattarella, the case against Napolitano was also brought up by the Five-Star Movement.
"A lot has changed since 2014, including the fact that the Five-Star Movement is now much stronger and the office of the president is weaker," Capperucci told Xinhua. "But that still doesn't mean impeachment is likely."
The impeachment process in Italy is long and complex, requiring approval from an absolute majority in both houses of parliament and an OK from the Constitutional Court, according to Barbara Randazzo, a constitutional law professor at the State University of Milan.
"If it did happen, and if it happened quickly, it would still take months to conclude," Randazzo said in an interview.
Oreste Massari, a political scientist with Rome's La Sapienza University, told Xinhua he doubted a move to oust Mattarella would be able to approach a majority in parliament.
"If you have the Five-Star Movement and the small, allied parties like Fratelli d'Italia you would fall far short of a majority," Massari said. "I don't think any other parties would support the move."
Is that is indeed the case, then why is Di Maio pushing for impeachment? Some analysts told Xinhua there was a risk that after failing to form a government after 12 weeks of negotiations and then pushing for an impeachment process that falls short, Di Maio could start to be seen as an ineffective politician.
But LUISS's Capperucci said she believed Di Maio could be pushing the impeachment agenda specifically for political reasons.
"Di Maio knows the impeachment movement will not be effective, but I think we're seeing part of a battle between the Five-Star Movement and the League," Capperucci said, referring to the second party that nominated law professor Giuseppe Conte as prime minister. Conte abandoned hopes for the job on Sunday after Mattarella nixed Savona's nomination as minister of finance.
"Mattarella seems to fear the League more than the Five-Star Movement so far, and so far the League has been more effective despite earning around half as many votes," the professor went on. "Maybe Di Maio is trying to show his strength."
