Salvini’s election hopes dashed as Five Star voters back coalition

ITALY was heading for a new government last night after grassroots supporters of the Five Star Movement voted overwhelmingly in favour of forming a coalition with their longtime enemies, the centre-left Democratic Party.

The result was the final nail in the coffin of Matteo Salvini’s hopes of forcing a general election in which he had expected to emerge as the country’s next prime minister at the helm of the hard-right League party.

Nearly 80,000 Five Star members voted online in favour of the alliance with the Democratic Party, with 79 per cent voting “Yes”.

“I am very proud of today’s vote and very proud of the government that is to come,” said Luigi Di Maio, the head of Five Star.

The result should bring resolution to a weeks-long political crisis, precipitated when Mr Salvini pulled the plug on the previous 14-month-old coalition between the League and Five Star.

He had hoped to trigger an autumn election from which his party, Italy’s most popular with around 32 per cent of the vote, would have emerged victorious. But he failed to foresee the unlikely alliance being formed.

The “Yes” vote means that Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister-designate, can present Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, with a list of suggested ministers. The new line-up will then have to win confidence votes in the two chambers of parliament. The hope among the coalition is that they can bury their differences sufficiently to hold together the new government for the rest of the legislature, until 2023.

But analysts are sceptical. The new government will be a “mismatched coalition between two traditional foes,” said Wolfango Piccoli, of political risk consultancy Teneo.

Mr Salvini, the outgoing interior minister and deputy prime minister, has claimed that the new administration will be soft on migrants and refugees, in contrast to his policy of closing Italian ports.

The new government will have a more pro-eu stance than the previous coalition, but there could be clashes with Brussels over the expansionary 2020 budget that the new allies put forward in a 26-point policy programme.

They called for greater flexibility from the EU to overcome the “excessive rigidity” of existing budget rules.