Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced his resignation on Thursday evening because of a government crisis triggered by the Five Star Movement (M5S). But President Mattarella refused.
Draghi had summoned the Council of Ministers to a meeting on Thursday evening at short notice. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m., his office in Rome said. The head of government was previously for a one-hour conversation with the head of state Sergio Mattarella. He announced later in the evening that he rejects Draghi’s resignation.
The government crisis that has been raging for days reached a new high on Thursday. The co-governing Five Star Movement stayed away from an important parliamentary vote in the Senate. She also refrained from expressing her confidence in Draghi.
With the absence, “the pact of trust that was the basis of government action was terminated,” Draghi said in his statement.
The former head of the European Central Bank was elected Prime Minister of a multi-party government on February 13, 2021 as a non-partisan candidate. Italy’s political destiny is now (again) in the hands of Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella.
He can ask Draghi to try again – but this is unlikely. Mattarella can also appoint an interim prime minister as executive secretary of the government. Or he dissolves both chambers and announces early elections. These would then have to take place after sixty days, i.e. at the end of September.
For the Cinque Stelle, which triggered the government crisis, such early elections should not be convenient. In the voters’ favour, they are currently only around twelve percent. In 2018 they were still at 33 percent.
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