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Agencies

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Tuesday he would resign, lashing out at far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for pursuing his own interests by pulling the plug on the government coalition.
The move leaves the eurozone’s third largest economy in a political vacuum until President Sergio Mattarella decides whether to form a new coalition or call an election after talks with parties in the coming days.
“I’m ending this government experience here … I will go to the president of the republic to inform him of my resignation,” Conte said after an almost hour-long speech to the Senate.
“It is irresponsible to initiate a government crisis,” Conte said after Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister, began his efforts to bring down the government in the hope of snap elections he hoped would make him premier.
Italy’s ‘mafia bosses getting richer’ as far-right minister Salvini targets immigrants instead
“It shows personal and party interests,” Conte said of the end of the alliance between the anti-migrant League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).
Conte was speaking following a week of fallout from Salvini’s decision to back out of the alliance on August 8, plunging Italy into political turmoil.
After Conte announced his intention to resign, Senate speaker Elisabette Casellati told Salvini to leave the government bench and join his party’s senators, where Salvini said: “Thank you, finally, I would do it all again.”
“The Italians vote with their heads and hearts,” Salvini said, invoking the Virgin Mary to “protect the Italian people” and repeating his call for snap elections while also making a final appeal to M5S.

Caught on the back foot, Salvini last week made the surprise offer to back a key M5S proposal to cut the number of lawmakers from 950 to 605, but only if new elections were then swiftly held.
“Making citizens vote is the essence of democracy, asking them to vote every year is irresponsible,” Conte said as League senators booed and hissed.
“I heard you calling for ‘full powers’ and invoke (demonstrations in) the piazzas to support you, which worries me,” Conte said.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1922 assumed so-called full powers to govern the country at his whim.
Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter in Twitter feud with comic Jim Carrey
By resigning, Conte has avoided a no-confidence vote sought by the League.
Conte, who is usually mild-mannered, upped the ante against Salvini during the weekend, accusing him of disloyalty and being “obsessed” with closing off Italy’s ports to migrants.
The row erupted after Conte refused to sign an order banning the Open Arms migrant rescue ship from docking in the island of Lampedusa.
Salvini was hoping his drastic move on August 8 to withdraw from the coalition would immediately collapse the government and bring about snap elections. The League leader has, since the May European parliamentary elections, been seeking to capitalise on his party’s growing popularity: it is polling in first place at about 38 per cent.
Salvini’s party is much weaker in the Italian parliament following a third place showing behind M5S and the centre-left Democratic party (PD) in March 2018 elections, when it took 17 per cent of the vote.
Italy’s far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini reluctantly agrees to let 27 minors off migrant ship
His strategy could be thwarted if M5S and the PD formed an alternative majority to guide Italy through the delicate budget period in the autumn.
Salvini has also signalled the possibility of patching things up with M5S to avoid the party’s tie-up with the PD.
He said on Tuesday his next move would depend on what Conte said in the senate.
“I think Italians have appreciated the way I’ve managed the situation, from Open Arms to the fight against the mafia,” Salvini told Radio 24 before Conte’s resignation.
“What sense is a government against Salvini, with all inside? A government needs to be strong to get things done. Who would an M5S-PD executive represent?”
The political crisis has raised concerns about the Italian economy, whose debt ratio at 132 per cent of gross domestic product is the second-biggest in the euro zone after Greece.
Since the unwieldy government was formed in June 2018, uncertainty under the coalition has cost the country an extra €5 billion ($5.54 billion) in interest on its debt, the Il Sole 24 Ore financial newspaper reported.
Agence France-Presse and The Guardian


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Italy

Italy PM Giuseppe Conte resigns, launches blistering attack on deputy Matteo Salvini

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, left, and deputy PM Matteo Salvini. Photo: AFP

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) supporters demonstrate in front of the Senate as Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte arrives on August 20, 2019 in Rome. - Italy's Premier Conte says to offer resignation during his speech at the Senate after calling Italy's far-right Interior Minister "irresponsible" to spark a political crisis by pulling the plug on the governing coalition. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte touches Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's shoulder as he delivers a speech at the Italian Senate. Photo: AFP

Italy’s far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini reluctantly agrees to let 27 minors off migrant ship

Migrants are evacuated from the Open Arms Spanish humanitarian boat. Photo: AP Photo

Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini meets the journalists at the end of a security conference in Castel Volturno, southern Italy, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019. (Cesare Abbate/ANSA Via AP)

epa07778077 Boats of the Italian Coast Guard and Finance Guard carrying 27 unaccompanied minors arrive at the port of Lampedusa, Sicily, southern Italy, 17 August 2019. Twenty-seven unaccompanied minors who were among the 134 migrants rescued aboard the Spanish NGO Open Arms's ship were transferred on two motor boats of the Italian Coast Guard and Finance Guard. EPA-EFE/Concetta Rizzo

Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter in Twitter feud with comic Jim Carrey

Italy's conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi and Azione Sociale (Social Action) leader Alessandra Mussolini hold a final campaign rally ahead of April 13-14 election on April 10, 2008 in Rome. Self-made billionaire Berlusconi, winner or runner-up in four past elections, had a comfortable edge in final voter surveys published 10 days ago. AFP PHOTO / Alberto Pizzoli (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP)

BTM8532: MUSSOLINI-FILE PHOTO 1930s-Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is shown with a group of officers in a mid-1930s file photo. F8532/CREDIT: THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE //

Member of the European Parliament Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Italian wartime dictator Benito Mussolini. Photo: Reuters

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The political crisis has raised concerns about the Italian economy, whose debt ratio is at 132 per cent of gross domestic product



Italy’s prime minister accuses interior minister of sinking the ruling coalition and endangering the economy for personal and political gain.


Italy PM Giuseppe Conte resigns, launches blistering attack on deputy Matteo Salvini

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} The political crisis has raised concerns about the Italian economy, whose debt ratio is at 132 per cent of gross domestic product

The political crisis has raised concerns about the Italian economy, whose debt ratio is at 132 per cent of gross domestic product