Rome (AFP)
D-day for the first Italian populist government. In all likelihood, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will resign on Tuesday, formalizing a blistering break between the League of Matteo Salvini and the 5 Stars Movement, after only 14 months of cohabitation.
It is the leader of the League (far right) that triggered hostilities on August 8, accusing its partners of the M5S (antisystem) to multiply the refusal on tax cuts or major projects.
Just after blowing up the coalition, the Lombard embarked on a media tour of beaches to conquer the South, constantly pushing for elections in the fall.
While the instability of the Hitch League-M5S has lost 5 billion euros in Italy tensions in the bond market, the markets reacted nervously to the uncertainties weighing on the third economy of the euro zone, highly indebted and that is idling.
Salvini thought he could bet on the surprise effect, on the weakening of the M5S of the inaudible Luigi Di Maio, and on polls crediting him of 36/38%, the opposite of the score of the legislative of 2018 when the M5S s 'was awarded 32% of the vote (15/16% today), and the League 17%.
But by triggering the "craziest crisis in the world", in the words of the newspaper La Stampa, the strong man of the government had not taken into account the inertia of the Italian system where majorities are born and die in parliament.
Mr. Conte has quickly reframed his Deputy Prime Minister, calling on August 8 to "explain and justify" in Parliament his decision to put an end to a brutal new experience of government.
On Tuesday at 3:00 pm (13:00 GMT), the Prime Minister will address the senators. Mr. Salvini, as an elected member of the upper house, should also speak.
Mr. Conte then has various options: either to wait for the possible vote of a motion of censure against his government, or to resign directly and to go up to the presidential palace of the Quirinal.
- A government "Ursula"? -
The ball will then pass into the camp of President Sergio Mattarella who will hold consultations for several days to explore the possibility of a new government majority and choose a personality to lead it.
While Mr. Salvini continued his "beach tour", between mojitos, selfies and invectives on "Italy (which) should not become a camp of migrants", the other parties have indeed organized the anti-election front.
A first proposal for an alliance came, to everyone's surprise, from the former head of government Matteo Renzi, as much a bane of Mr. Salvini as the M5S. Mr. Renzi proposed a reconciliation and launched the idea of an "institutional" government, combining his formation, the Democratic Party (PD, center left) and the M5S.
On the agenda, the preparation of the 2020 budget to avoid a VAT increase that will occur automatically in January 2020, if nothing is done to fill a hole of 23 billion euros in public funds.
The boss of the PD, Nicola Zingaretti, however warned Monday: "either the consultations (of the president) result in a strong government and renewal also in its program, or it will be better to return to the polls".
Another track was suggested by the former Prime Minister and President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, who proposes a pro-European government called "Ursula", named after the new Commission president, the German Ursula von der Leyen.
In his mind, it would be a left-right alliance that could include Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, in the manner of German coalitions, for Italy to become an "active member of the European Union" again.
On the eve of D-Day, Matteo Salvini denounced these maneuvers as "games of power and palaces" which are "a shameful betrayal of the Italian people".
According to the Youtrend Institute, which polled political scientists, an M5S-PD government garners 36% of probabilities, immediate elections 22%, a coalition "Ursula" 12% and the same prognosis for a government with only objectives to vote the budget and prepare new elections in spring 2020.
© 2019 AFP