Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy, resigned this Tuesday (26) in a risky move.
The decision was made official in a meeting with President Sergio Mattarella and, paradoxically, it is a last attempt by the Prime Minister to remain in power.
His resignation is still a reflection of the crisis opened by former prime minister and senator Matteo Renzi, the mainly responsible for the current political crisis in the country.
The leader of the small centrist party Itália Viva (IV) decided to break with the government because he disagreed with its economic policies and the management of funds from the European Union.
FOR Luigi Di Maio This is “the moment of truth”. “In these timesWe want to understand who defends and loves the nation and who thinks only of their own benefit”, wrote the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on Facebook.
A week ago Conte was forced to ask for a vote of confidence from Parliament and achieved a narrow majority in the Chamber of Deputies (321 votes out of a total of 630), but had to settle for a relative majority in the Senate (154 out of 320), obtained thanks to the abstention of 16 members of IV.
However, with the expectation of a defeat in the vote in the Senate on Wednesday (27) on a report by the Minister of Justice, Alfonso Bonafede, which would cause the fall of the government, Conte decided to anticipate and hand over the position.
Their objective is to obtain from President Mattarella a mandate to try to form a new government – his third in less than three years – but this time with a solid majority in Parliament.
Next Steps
With Conte's resignation in hand, Mattarella is expected to begin consultations – this Wednesday – with the parties to verify the possibility of building a new majority in Parliament.
The president could even nominate another person to form a government, depending on the results of conversations with the parties. Some members of the M5S and PD say behind the scenes that the priority is to avoid early elections – the next election is scheduled for 2023 – in the middle of the pandemic, and not to re-elect Conte.
Far-right parties League, by Matteo Salvini, and Brothers of Italy (FdI), by Giorgia Meloni, want elections to be called, while the moderate Força Italia (FI), by Silvio Berlusconi, who could be resized by an early trip to the polls, has already defended a “government of national unity” to manage Italy in the coming months of the pandemic.
The country is one of the hardest hit by the new coronavirus and has one of the highest mortality rates from Covid-19 in the world, with 141,42 deaths for every 100 inhabitants. (With information from the Ansa agency)
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