Italy’s populists urge demo for early elections

Premier-designate prepares to hold talks with President as protests are organised

Italy’s populist leaders, incensed by their failed bid for power, began mobilising for an early election even as premierdesignate Carlo Cottarelli puts together a Cabinet to present to the head of state.

The disconnect between the proand anti-European forces underscores the widening gulf in Italy’s fractured politics that’s unsettling investors.

With a general election expected as early as September, the antiestablishment Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant, euro-sceptic League are heralding an uncertain new period for the euro area’s thirdbiggest economy.

Italian government debt plummeted on Tuesday, with the spread between Italian and German 10-year bonds surging about 80 basis points to the highest level in just over five years. A new election could take place on a date between September 9 and October 7, newspaper Corriere

della Sera reported.

With markets in meltdown, Cottarelli, a former International Monetary Fund official picked by President Sergio Mattarella to form an interim administration, will meet Mattarella this week, according to a senior government official who asked not to be identified. Cottarelli, 63, may serve as both premier and finance minister, the official said.

As Cottarelli laboured in an office allocated to him by the Rome Parliament, Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio fired broadsides against the President, setting the tone for a virulent campaign. He called for a demonstration in Rome on June 2, a holiday marking the birth of Italy’s post-World War II republic.

“I call on citizens to mobilise, make yourselves heard,” Di Maio said in a Facebook video. He said he’d hung the Italian flag from the windows of Five Star’s parliamentary offices and urged supporters to do the same.

He was echoed by League head Matteo Salvini, who also called for protests in the country’s piazzas over the weekend. Salvini has yet to say whether he will campaign with Five Star or with a centre-right alliance including Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

“The condition for an alliance with Forza Italia is to change European rules, I can’t ally myself with people who tell me that Europe is fine as it is,” Salvini told RAI radio.

The League is credited with 27.5 per cent of voting intentions, up from 17.4 per cent in the inconclusive March 4 elections, according to an SWG opinion poll.

Five Star was down to 29.5 per cent from 32.7 per cent. Forza Italia was down to 8 per cent from 14 per cent. With bond yields surging, the euro was also hit.

Cottarelli’s Cabinet will require a confidence vote in Parliament, where most parties are ready to go for a repeat election instead. Both populist parties rejected Cottarelli even before he was tapped to form a Government, and Berlusconi said his party will vote against the former IMF official.

Cottarelli said he will plan for a general election “after August” if his Government loses the confidence votes in both houses of Parliament.

Five Star and the League have denounced Mattarella, 76, for vetoing euroskeptic economist Paolo Savona as finance minister in the now-foiled populist Government.

The party leaders say Mattarella ceded to pressure from investors and countries such as Germany when he vetoed Savona, denying them power. Di Maio pledged to seek the President’s impeachment.

Andrea Marcucci, the Senate leader for Italy’s Democratic Party, likened the populists’ plans to Benito Mussolini’s 1922 mass demonstration in Rome, which led to the Fascist dictator’s ascent to power.