Italian PM announces resignation, calls Salvini ‘political opportunist’
ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Tuesday announced his imminent resignation, following a harsh political dispute within his cabinet coalition.
Conte’s resignation would put an end to a 14-month-long government experience between the farright, anti-immigrant League party and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).
The crisis was triggered earlier this month by the League’s leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who submitted a no-confidence motion in parliament against the prime minister.
Addressing the upper house, Conte harshly criticized Salvini for such a step, warning it may have serious impact on the country.
He claimed there were personal and political motivations behind Salvini’s decision to pull the plug on the ruling coalition of which his League was part, despite the government’s action proving effective.
“This has been an objectively grave decision, which entails serious consequences for the country’s political and economic life,” Conte told senators.
“In this way, the Interior Minister has shown he is pursuing his own interests and that of his party.”
Speaking amid his cabinet ministers, with Salvini sitting hard-faced on his right, Conte accused the League leader to have been looking for a pretext to go back to polls since after scoring a wide victory in European parliament elections held in May.
In that vote, the League doubled its support from around 17 in 2018 national elections to over 34 percent, while his coalition partner, the M5S, almost halve its consensus.
The prime minister warned that a political crisis in the middle of the summer would eventually lead to snap elections in autumn, which not only was highly unusual for Italy’s institutional and political rules, but would expose the country to “political uncertainty and financial instability.”
“Furthermore, the announcement (of the League’s no-confidence motion) came immediately after the approval of the new security decree, and this timeline suggests political opportunism,” Conte stressed.
Strongly advocated by Salvini, the security decree further which