Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will resign amid pandemic and political turmoil
“The cabinet will meet tomorrow morning at nine o’clock in the morning, when Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will inform the ministers of his desire to go to (the presidential palace) and submit his resignation,” the statement said. She added that he would later meet President Sergio Mattarella.
The resignation is a calculated step that may ultimately give him another chance to form a government.
Conte survived two confidence votes in Parliament last week. But he lost his ruling majority in the Senate after his predecessor, Matteo Renzi, decided to withdraw the small Italian party FIFA from the ruling coalition led by Conte due to frustration with the government’s management of the Covid-19 epidemic and the accompanying economic slump.
President Mattarella can choose whether to accept Conte’s resignation, and is likely to invite him to try to build a new ruling majority. If Conte gets mandate to form a new majority, he will need to add five more senators to his current coalition.
Conte’s coalition, formed in 2019, is led by the center-left Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). Despite wide political differences, this unusual alliance prevented early elections that would have favored the far-right League.