Following dramatic scenes in the Italian Senate, where Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini launched fiery attacks on one another, the PM announced his resignation.
After Salvini tabled a no-confidence motion against Conte, the PM called the Deputy PM an opportunist who was “looking for a pretext to return to polls”
Salvini had tabled the motion saying that he could no longer work with the coalition partners from the Five Star Movement. On August 8, Salvini had announced that he would be withdrawing from the coalition.
Conte announced his resignation saying, “I take this opportunity to announce that I will present my resignation as head of government to the president of the republic.”
The ruling government was a coalition between the nationalist League party and the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement. Conte himself was an independent candidate, with Salvini from the Northern League and Luigi Di Maio from the Five Star Movement. Both Di Maio and Salvini served at once as the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy.
Conte said that Salvini’s actions would be “liable to tip the country into a spiral of political uncertainty and financial instability.”
Now, the decision to dissolve parliament, call new elections, or election a technical government, rests with the President Sergio Mattarella. Additionally, Salvini had said earlier that he would be willing to keep the coalition alive to allow parliament to pass its budget for 2020.
Italy has had 66 governments since World War II, with the current situation possibly to result in a 67th.
