Altieri withdraws candidacy for Anac presidency

The Council of Ministers had resolved on Thursday, November 6, to launch the procedure for the appointment of Trifone “Nuccio” Altieri to the presidency of the National Anti-Corruption Authority. Just one day later, on November 7, Altieri announced the withdrawal of his availability, closing within twenty-four hours an institutional step that had already ignited political controversy.

The government had defended the designation and the correctness of its conduct from the very first moment, rejecting the objections raised by the opposition regarding the choice of name. According to Repubblica, part of the challenge centered on the rule excluding from the Anac presidency anyone who held party positions in the preceding three years: a requirement that, in the opposition’s reading, made Altieri’s designation problematic from the outset.

The procedure for appointing the Anac president is not an act the government can conclude on its own. Il Sole 24 Ore notes that the appointment requires the favorable opinion of at least two-thirds of the competent parliamentary committees, a threshold that necessarily demands broad convergence, difficult to achieve in a climate of open confrontation such as the one that has accompanied this designation from the very first hours.

In the meantime, the Authority remains in a provisional state: Repubblica reports that the current leadership has been extended for 45 days, but with limited powers compared to ordinary administration. It is within this narrow window of time that the government will have to identify a new name, if it wishes to avoid having the extension expire without a definitive solution.

The Altieri case fits into a broader institutional tug-of-war between the executive and the opposition over appointments to the leadership of independent authorities, a terrain on which the two-thirds threshold required in committee effectively acts as a veto power for parliamentary minorities. It remains to be seen which name the government will choose to propose during the current 45-day extension, and whether it will manage to find a candidate capable of overcoming the parliamentary barrier that blocked the first designation.