Italy: Giuseppe Conte will resign in an attempt to obtain a new majority
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in the Senate in Rome on January 20, 2021. AP - Roberto Monaldo
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Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, in search of a new majority since the defection of a pivotal party for his coalition, announced Monday evening that he would resign on Tuesday.
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Giuseppe Conte convened a Council of Ministers Tuesday at 9 am (8 am GMT) intended to "
inform the ministers of his intention to go to the Quirinal (seat of the Presidency of the Republic)
to resign
", indicates a press release from his services.
Giuseppe Conte hopes to get a mandate from President Sergio Matterella to try to form a new government, the third since 2018, and to implement a plan of more than 200 billion euros supposed to revive the engine of the third economy in the euro area, cooled by the pandemic which killed more than 85,000 people in the country.
The political crisis was triggered by
ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
(2014-2016), who withdrew his small party Italia Viva (IV) from the ruling coalition on January 13, after weeks of criticism of the management of the health crisis and the economic spending plans of Giuseppe Conte.
IV was part of the business majority since the summer of 2019 with the Democratic Party (PD, center-left) and the 5 Star Movement (M5S, anti-system before coming to power), supported in Parliament by small formations.
No other choice
In order to stay in power and avoid resignation, Giuseppe Conte had to appear before Parliament last week for a confidence vote from both chambers.
Easy in the lower house, the Senate vote was narrowly won, with only a relative majority after IV senators withdrew.
Giuseppe Conte had since led tense negotiations behind the scenes in the hope of securing the rallying of independent or dissident parliamentarians who would have eventually enabled him to remain in control by reshuffling his team, without success.
With his back to the wall, the Prime Minister had no choice but to put his mandate back on the line - hoping nonetheless to retain the President's confidence.
Especially since his Minister of Justice must present this week to the Senate a reform almost guaranteed to be rebutted, a setback that would have put his government in the minority and would have forced him to resign anyway.
(With
AFP
)
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Italy
Giuseppe Conte