Power eludes Italy’s determined populists
Five Star Movement, League look for new ways to form government
ROME— If at first, or second, you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. That was the lesson from Italy’s populist parties Wednesday.
After the collapse of their attempt to form a government earlier this week, they were back at the drawing board, and on the campaign trail, giving it another go.
The fact that President Sergio Mattarella had vetoed their euroskeptic choice for a key cabinet position, and that global markets sank with fears about instability in the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, was apparently no deterrent for the populists in either the Five Star Movement or the League party.
Nor was the fact that Mattarella had only days ago called on Carlo Cottarelli, a former International Monetary Fund of- ficial and spending hawk, to form a technical government to guide Italy to a new election.
Cottarelli, who is unlikely to win a confidence vote in Parliament, had informal morning and afternoon meetings with Mattarella in the Quirinal Palace.
But instead of presenting a list of cabinet picks, he apparently decided to hold off to see if the parties that won a majority of the votes in elections in March could find a way out of their impasse, according to the Italian news agency ANSA late Tuesday night.
The developments for which Cottarelli was waiting were still developing Wednesday afternoon.