Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Nearly half of all Italian voters want Giuseppe Conte to remain PM, poll finds

Some 45 per cent of Italian voters want Giuseppe Conte to stay on as prime minister, an opinion poll suggested Thursday, after his resignation deepened the country's political crisis.

Published: 28 January 2021 16:29 CET
Nearly half of all Italian voters want Giuseppe Conte to remain PM, poll finds
Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

The IXE survey showed that 26 percent favoured new elections, while 11 percent would like the coalition government to stay in place, but under another prime minister.

EXPLAINED: Why has Italy's prime minister resigned and what happens now?

A further seven percent of respondents said they would rather have a new centre-right coalition in power, while 11 per cent of those polled had no opinion.

Conte was also confirmed as the country's most popular politician, with 52 per cent of respondents expressing confidence in him.

The prime minister resigned on Tuesday after former premier Matteo Renzi withdrew his small Italia Viva party from the coalition government, leaving it short of a majority in the Senate.

Since Wednesday, President Sergio Mattarella has been in talks with party leaders to seek a way out.

Talks are scheduled to run until Friday.

Talks on saving the government are being held at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome. Photo: AFP

The main parties behind the outgoing government – the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) – have thrown their support behind Conte.

Conte hopes Mattarella will ask him to form a new government, but this depends on whether he can assemble a new ruling coalition.

PROFILE: Italy's Giuseppe Conte, from 'populist puppet' to political survivor

But to keep his job, Conte either needs to make up with Renzi or win over a few opposition senators to get his majority back.

The crisis has left Italy rudderless in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed almost 87,000 lives and caused an unprecedented recession.

Gregorio De Falco, an independent senator who has offered to support a new Conte-led cabinet, stressed the urgency of ending the political stalemate.

“The country is going through a very dangerous health emergency and a devastating economic crisis. We need to act quickly,” he said after meeting Mattarella.

The head of state was due to meet the main players of the political crisis, including the M5S, the PD, Renzi and the centre-right opposition parties, on Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Conte gave witness testimony in a case against anti-immigration League party leader Matteo Salvini, who is accused of illegally detaining migrants at sea while interior minister.

Despite the ongoing political crisis, Conte appeared before a judge seeking to decide whether Salvini, who is no longer in government, should face trial.

Member comments

  1. Salvini to face trail ,pmsl you just could not make this stuff up. Have these idiots got nothing better to do apart from waste money?

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

SHOW COMMENTS