Italian leader Conte to step down.
ROME >> Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte resigned Tuesday amid the collapse of the 14-month-old populist government, raising the possibility of new elections in the fall that could bring to power the anti-migrant interior minister who engineered Conte’s downfall.
Addressing the Senate, Conte blasted Matteo Salvini for setting in motion a “dizzying spiral of political and financial instability” by essentially pulling the plug on the government. Salvini’s right-wing League party sought a no-confidence vote against Conte earlier this month, a stunningly bold move for the government’s junior coalition partner.
Conte blamed Salvini for sacrificing the government’s survival in favor of his eagerness to become premier himself.
A lawyer with no political experience who was tapped to break a postelection stalemate last year, Conte struggled to hold together his often ideologically opposed coalition’s forces — Salvini’s rightwing League and the antiestablishment 5-Star Movement. He handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella at the presidential palace Tuesday night.
Mattarella, who is head of state, asked Conte and the rest of the government to stay on in a caretaker role. The president could test if there’s enough support for a new government. Failing that, he might try to build a consensus to back a “neutral” figure to head a government whose main goal would be to lead the country through year’s end, enough time to make painful budget cuts to meet European Union parameters.
If no other path is feasible, Mattarella would have to dissolve Parliament. Elections could then be held as soon as late October — 3½ years ahead of schedule.
Salvini, who sat next to Conte during his speech, smirking at times, declared, “I’d do it all again.” He repeatedly kissed a rosary he slipped out of his pocket right after Conte rebuked him for associating “political slogans with religious symbols.”
Pressing for elections as soon as possible, Salvini said: “I don’t fear Italians’ judgment.”
Salvini’s party is soaring in opinion polls and triumphed in European Parliament elections in May. He’s intent on capitalizing on this popularity with national elections.
His crackdown on migrants, whom the party’s voter base largely blames for crime, appears to be a huge factor in Salvini’s climbing popularity. The interior minister has adopted especially harsh measures against private rescue boats, which he contends essentially facilitate human trafficking of migrants across the Mediterranean from smugglers’ bases in Libya to European shores.
Salvini insists that citizens are also behind his call for less influence by the European Union on everyday Italian life. Supporters at his rallies cheer his “Italians first” policies.
Should any early elections sweep Salvini into power, financial markets could be rattled by his Euro-skepticism.