The future of Prime Minster Mario Draghi’s executive was uncertain on Wednesday as the 5-Star Movement’s (M5S) mulled over its position regarding Thursday’s confidence vote in the Senate on the government’s cost-of-living aid package.
Draghi needs the M5S to back the executive in the confidence vote. If it doesn’t, it could lead to a crisis of government. As it stood, M5S’s national council prevailing line was for the M5S’s lawmakers to snub the vote, sources said.
Yesterday, Draghi said his broad coalition government would not continue without the M5S. However, he believed the aid package should pass on Thursday even without the support of the movement’s Upper House lawmakers.
Tension in the coalition
There has been high tension within the coalition. Recently, M5S leader and ex-premier Giuseppe Conte presented Draghi with a list of demands in order for M5S to stay in the executive.
On Tuesday, Draghi showed willingness to reach agreement on some of these issues, including a demand for the introduction of a minimum wage. However, he also stressed that the sense of his government would be ‘lost” if the parties supporting it started to lay down ultimatums.
Draghi and Conte may meet again on Wednesday before Conte has an encounter with the M5S’s Senators, sources said. They spoke over the phone Wednesday afternoon.
“Dangerous limbo”
League leader Matteo Salvini the “Italian people should have their say” via early elections if the M5S drops its backing for the executive. The League also released a statement, saying it did not want a government crisis, while stressing that It was not possible to “continue like this”.
In addition, Veneto Governor and League bigwig Luca Zaia said he hoped the government did not collapse, saying this could lead to “a dangerous limbo”.
Enrico Letta, the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said it would be “paradoxical” to put the government in danger at a time when it was about to tackle the job insecurity many workers in Italy are enduring.
