PD agrees to Conte as Prime Minister in coalition with M5s
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The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has agreed to enter into a coalition government with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) which would be led by the outgoing premier Giuseppe Conte.
The so-called ‘Conte #2’, was described by the PD leader Nicola Zingaretti as a “new challenge” and will be delivering fairer, greener and more redistributive policies.
PD leader Nicola Zingaretti said this after consultations with President Sergio Mattarella where they informed him that the PD had agreed to the M5S naming lawyer Conte as next premier.
Zingaretti said that the PD thought Italy needed a government that would mark “a turning point and discontinuity” from the last populist government.
He said that the new government would not take up the baton from the previous 5-Star-League administration, and would start a “fresh challenge”. The new government would hopefully usher in a “new season, civil, social and political”. The economic recipe would be “redistributive and green”.
“We have the courage to try,” he said. Conte is expected to be given a mandate by Mattarella on Wednesday evening.Three-time former premier and centre-right Forza Italia (FI) leader Silvio Berlusconi said after government crisis consultations with President Mattarella Wednesday that “we told the President of the Republic about the need to give the word back to the Italians amid the concern for the dangerous scenario that is taking shape” with a likely M5S-PD government.
He said the M5S-PD alliance was a “politically wrong and inadequate solution”.
The FI leader Italy needed a “liberal and free-market breakthrough”. He said FI would be in the opposition to a government that was the fruit of “palace games”. Berlusconi added that without FI the centre right would not win. He said FI, whose support has steadily been eroded as the nationalist League has risen in the last two years, was starting its “march to be the top party again”. The former premier also complimented journalists for their professionalism.
