Italian prime minister Mario Draghi's resignation refused
By
Sofia Barbarani
IN PERUGIA, ITALY
14 July 2022 •
Embattled leader fails to gain support from his coalition partner but the country’s president, Sergio Mattarella, refuses to let him walk
Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, announced he would step down on Friday after losing the support of his coalition partner, but the country’s president refused to accept his resignation.
Mr Draghi, who warned earlier this week that he would not lead his Government without a united front, met with Sergio Mattarella, the president, to tender his resignation after the Five Star Movement party who prop up his Government boycotted a vote of confidence in him on Thursday.
In an effort to boost the profile of his party amid dwindling support, Giuseppe Conte, the Five Star leader, has been increasingly taking on Mr Draghi’s government over a multi-billion-euro aid package for struggling families, which also includes a provision allowing the city of Rome to build a giant rubbish incinerator.
Despite the government winning the confidence motion in the upper house of parliament, the absence of the Five Star Movement from the vote highlighted the coalition’s fractures, leading Mr Draghi to resign.
“Tonight I will hand over my resignation to the president of the Republic. Today’s votes in parliament are very significant from a political standpoint,” Mr Draghi said in a statement.
“The national unity coalition that’s supported this government is gone, the trust is gone,” he added.
But after a one-hour meeting with Mr Draghi, the president called on the prime minister to address parliament on Wednesday to avoid a snap election, according to a statement issued by the president’s office.
“Wednesday will be the decisive day, not today,” Dario Franceschini, the minister of culture, told the press. “In parliament, in daylight, all of the political forces will have to tell Italians what they intend to do.”
“We now have five days to work towards parliament confirming confidence in the Draghi government and for Italy to emerge as quickly as possible from the dramatic incident it has been in,” Enrico Letta, the head of the Democratic Party (PD) said in a tweet.
Calls for early election
Both Mr Letta’s PD and the far-Right League have been calling for early elections in case of a government collapse.
“If a coalition party doesn’t back a government decree, that’s it, enough is enough, it seems clear that we should go to elections,” said Matteo Salvini, League leader.
“President Draghi and Italy have become victims of too many ‘nos’ of the Five Star Movement,” Mr Salvini said in a statement on Thursday. “It is unthinkable that Italy should suffer weeks of paralysis at a dramatic moment like this, no one should be afraid to give the word back to the Italians.”
The president can now attempt to persuade Mr Draghi to form another government or find a new prime minister to lead Italy into next year’s election or to call an early election.
The Five Star Movement has been haemorrhaging parliamentarians and support in the polls over policy U-turns and internal divisions.
The far-Right has seized on the tensions, with both the anti-immigrant League – part of Mr Draghi’s coalition – and the opposition Brothers of Italy party saying new elections should be called.
But Mr Draghi could equally find himself back at the head of the exact same coalition, as Five Star has little interest in early elections that could see it perform poorly.
Five Star won legislative elections in 2018 with an unprecedented third of the vote but is now facing an uncertain future thanks to major internal fractures and now finds itself polling at 11 per cent.
Mr Draghi was appointed prime minister in February 2021 by Mr Mattarella and charged with carrying out the reforms required to secure the EU’s largest tranche of post-pandemic recovery funds – a package worth approximately €200 billion for Italy.