Caretaker govt looms for Italy if last-ditch talks fail
ROME: President Sergio Mattarella will try once again to broker an agreement to form a viable government two months after Italy’s inconclusive elections, following threats to name a team of technocrats instead.
The Mar 4 polls left a rightwing coalition led by the far-right League party in the driver’s seat with 37 per cent of the vote.
Seeking to ward off the prospect of a caretaker cabinet, League leader Matteo Salvini on Friday proposed going into a temporary government with the secondplaced Five Star Movement (M5S) until December.
This would give parliament time to pass a new electoral reform and adopt next year’s budget for the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
He said fresh elections could then be held early next year.
The anti-establishment M5S, led by Luigi Di Maio, garnered 32 percent in the election, while the leftist Democratic Party won 19 percent.
The three parties will be first in line to speak to Mattarella, followed by smaller parties and the two speakers of parliament.
Di Maio said Sunday that he would forgo the premiership as a gesture to the League.
“If we really have to shake things up... I say to Salvini, ‘Let’s pick a head of government together’,” Di Maio said on a TV talk show.
But the League, whose coalition includes Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, remains at loggerheads with M5S over the flamboyant former prime minister’s possible role.