Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi risks becoming Europe's youngest political has-been after his grand constitutional designs were rejected in a referendum yesterday by an unexpectedly large margin.
A media-savvy former boy scout from the outskirts of Florence, the 41-year-old came to power in February 2014, becoming Italy's youngest head of government since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was appointed to the post in 1922.
"I wanted to get rid of the too many seats of power in Italian politics (...) I failed and so the only seat of power that will be lost is mine," Renzi said admitting his referendum defeat and announcing his resignation.
In going, he honoured a promise made a year ago which came back to haunt him.
The referendum was about concentrating powers in the hands of the national government, but Renzi turned an issue of political stability into a love-me-or-hate-me plebiscite, enticing political rivals and dissatisfied voters to bay for his blood.
According to Claudio Cerasa, editor of Il Foglio newspaper, Renzi is quintessentially Florentine in his cockiness, and that is a problem with the general public.
"People from Florence are seen as arrogant, and the rest of Italy cannot stand them," Cerasa told dpa.
Renzi was sworn in after plotting against predecessor Enrico Letta, weeks after telling him he did not covet his job. The brutality of the palace coup was compared to an episode of 'House of Cards', one of the Italian premier's favourite TV series.
"Sometimes I am too nasty, a bit arrogant and also impulsive," Renzi told the LA7 broadcaster last month.
In a glossy interview with Vogue magazine in September, he quipped: "It's when I have everyone against me, that's when I have the most fun."
Born in Rignano dell'Arno, 20 kilometres east of central Florence, Renzi shot to national prominence with pledges to send to the "scrapyard" Italy's ageing and corrupt elite, while serving as the Renaissance city's mayor during 2009-2014.
In Rome, he talked of delivering one major reform per month, but that soon proved unrealistic. Renzi's biggest achievements have been liberalizing labour laws and modernizing the school system, although both reforms have angered his left-wing constituency.
His government also pushed through parliament a historic gay unions bill.
But its work was at best half-done on shaking up Italy's sclerotic justice system and bureaucracy, and its biggest failure has arguably been the economy.
Renzi has stressed that 650,000 new jobs were created and a crippling recession ended under his watch. But the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, Italy is still one of the slowest economies in the EU, and its banks are hobbled by too many bad loans.
Internationally, Renzi has won endorsements from outgoing US President Barack Obama, while he often clashed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU leaders, clamouring for more leeway from Brussels on national budgets and more cooperation on migration.
A self-proclaimed outsider, Renzi is a former Christian Democrat whose Democratic Party (PD) was once the domain of ex-communists like former premier Massimo D'Alema. Unlike his predecessors, he was always more at ease with business leaders than with trade unionists.
A recurrent criticism of Renzi is that he was big on style and short on substance, and enjoyed unnervingly cozy relations with scandal-prone former premier Silvio Berlusconi, who initially backed the failed constitutional reforms.
Berlusconi, who campaigned for a "no" referendum vote but offered to cooperate with Renzi after his defeat, said two weeks ago: "If I have to say the truth, there is only one true leader in politics today,and his name is Matteo Renzi."
Despite Sunday's humiliation, the fast-moving career of Italy's outgoing premier may not be over. Renzi's comeback skills were proved in late 2012, when he lost a PD leadership contest: he avenged his defeat and conquered the premiership in little more than a year.
- dpa
