• Crisis.Conte resigns and leads Italy to an uncertain future
  • Gatopardismos.Giuseppe Conte, the real counterweight of Matteo Salvini
  • Interior.Matteo Salvini, a minister with powers above the head of the Government

Italy has woken up today in absolute chaos after several weeks of uncertainty over the future of its Government. The political crisis caused by the motion of censure proposed by Matteo Salvini, Interior Minister and leader of the League, which led the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, to resign on Tuesday, has forced the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to testify to political parties to find out if there is a new parliamentary majority that can give the green light to an alternative government that prevents early return to the polls.

Salvini's strategic and "opportunistic" move, in the words of the resigning prime minister, could turn against the leader of the League, who forced the fall of the government coalition formed by his party and the Five Star Movement, with the intention of capitalize on the extraordinary consensus that has accumulated in just 14 months of government, doubling the votes of its coalition partners in the May European elections. The Democratic Party (PD) has unanimously agreed on Wednesday to open a dialogue with the Five Star Movement with the aim of forming an alliance that will allow Italy to govern the next three and a half years.

The Social Democrats, who are still trying to lift their heads after the debacle of their party in the last electoral elections in which they passed from first to third political forces, showed themselves compact Wednesday despite the fact that there is no mystery that there are two currents in the party divided over the immediate future of training. Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is one of the main supporters of an agreement with the 'grillinos' that allows the legislature to be exhausted and Salvini removed from power. A surprise for their own co-religionists who still remember how the Tuscan politician was precisely who refused to sit even at the same table with the Five Stars after last year's elections, precipitating the agreement between them and the Salvini League.

But not everyone within his party trusts Renzi's intentions, even though he has assured that he will not be part of the hypothetical Government. Nor do they do so in the Five Star Movement, which would have set a condition for a legislature without the former prime minister or any of his collaborators.

The current secretary general of the PD, Nicola Zingaretti, would prefer to claim at the polls a leadership that has been questioned since he was elected in the primaries last March. Even so, he says he is willing to talk with the 'grillinos' but not at any price. The general assembly of the party on Wednesday unanimously approved five conditions to govern with the M5E.

In the document, the PD requires its potential partners, among other things, a new economic and social program, a commitment to defend Italy's relationship with Brussels and a change in the management of the migration phenomenon that is based on the principles of " solidarity, legality and security ". This last point would imply in practice the dismantling of the anti-immigration laws passed by Salvini and voted by the Five Star Movement in the last year. A government of "discontinuity" that breaks with the previous 14 months and in which neither the leader of the 'grillinos', Luigi Di Maio, nor Giuseppe Conte would have room. "The heritage of this government is dramatic," says Zingaretti.

The option of an alternative Government guided by Conte does not convince the PD. And that despite the growing popularity that has been gained in recent months until a year ago unknown jurist. His applauded speech in the Senate, in which he accused Salvini of having led the country into chaos for exclusively electoral reasons, position him as an important resource of the party, once Di Maio seems to be more than amortized. Vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies in the last legislature, if there were elections the 'grillino' leader could not occupy any other institutional position due to an internal rule of the party that prevents more than two terms.

The current president of the Chamber, Roberto Fico, exponent of the most orthodox and left wing within the Five Star Movement, could be the last letter of the party to lead the future progressive coalition. For weeks, the name of economist Mario Draghi, current president of the European Central Bank, who will say goodbye in autumn will sound strong.

In any case, the last word corresponds to the head of state, Sergio Mattarella, who will meet with the main political parties on Thursday to assess the possibility of forming a new cabinet or calling early elections. But a new parliamentary majority no longer seems impossible. Salvini's dream of becoming prime minister could turn into a nightmare for 'il Capitano'.

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  • Italy
  • Sergio Mattarella
  • Matteo Salvini
  • Matteo Renzi
  • Mario Draghi

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CrisisConte resigns and leads Italy to an uncertain future

ITALY The party of former Prime Minister Renzi will not support the motion of censure to Conte