Foreign Minister and 5-Star Movement
(M5S) bigwig Luigi Di Maio said Thursday he had "no fear" about
the prospect of a snap election should Premier Giuseppe Conte's
government fall.
Di Maio also said the formerly anti-establishment M5S was the
"centre of gravity" of the government against the "egoisms" of
opposition leader Matteo Salvini, who leads the
nationalist-anti-migrant and Euroskpeic League party, and of
former premier Matteo Renzi who plunged the government into
crisis by pulling his small centrist Italia Viva (IV) party out
of the ruling coalition.
Conte is seeking to shore up his now-minority government so it
regains a solid majority in the Senate as reportedly requested
by the arbiter of the crisis, President Sergio Mattarella.
He was reportedly continuing to sound out more centrist Senators
after a handful helped him get a relative majority of 156, five
shy of the overall majority of 161, in the upper house Tuesday
night.
But Di Maio and the rest of the M5S on Thursday ruled out
appealing to the UDC party after its leader Lorenzo Cesa
resigned after being named in an 'Ndarngheta mafia probe,
protesting his innocence.
The other main government partner, the centre-left Democratic
Party (PD) which Renzi once led, said via several members
Thursday that Conte's securing the Senate confidence, albeit
with a minority government, had averted "dramatic" consequences
for the country.
Salvini and the other two leaders of the centre right, former
premier Silvio Berlusconi of the conservative Forza Italia (FI)
party and Giorgia Meloni of the nationalist Brothers of Italy
(FdI) party, on Thursday met with Mattarella to present their
request for Conte0's resignation and fresh elections which all
opinion polls say they would win.
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