Premier Matteo Renzi used a play
on words to suggest anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S)
leader Beppe Grillo was suffering sunstroke when he claimed the
government was staging a coup by using debate-limiting measures
to combat obstructionism against its Senate reform bill.
"Grillo says ours is a coup," Renzi said via his Twitter
account, @matteorenzi.
"Yours is sunstroke".
The Italian for coup is "colpo di stato" while the term for
sunstroke is "colpo di sole".
"It's called a coup. Mussolini had more scruples. He didn't
call it reform," Grillo had written on in his popular blog,
which gave life to the Internet-based M5S in 2009.
The firebrand comedian-turned-politician proceeded to call
for the president of Italy to step down.
"The director of this disaster is (President Giorgio)
Napolitano, who should...resign immediately. The M5S will not
have any contact from now on with a man who has abdicated from
his role as guarantor of the Constitution".
Napolitano spoke out in favour of the reform package
earlier this week.
Grillo's vitriol follows on the walk-out Thursday of some
100 M5S and opposition Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) lawmakers from
parliament.
They marched to Napolitano's office and staged a protest
outside the presidential palace after government parties said
that the controversial debate-cutting 'bear trap' to limit the
duration of speeches in parliament would be used on opponents
who are filibustering.
Opponents to the plan to turn the Senate into a leaner
assembly of local-government representatives have tabled around
7,800 amendments to the bill in a time-wasting tactic that meant
that only a handful have been voted on since the package reached
the floor of the Upper House this week.
The government wants to see the bill, which aims to make
passing legislation easier while saving public money, complete
its first reading in the Senate before parliament's summer
recess next month.
The bill has the backing of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi,
the leader of the opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI)
party, but is encountering staunch resistance from M5S, SEL, the
Northern League, and from within FI and the ruling Democratic
Party of Premier Matteo Renzi.
"They're saying sunstroke, we say P2," Grillo retorted on
Twitter in a reference to the P2 covert Masonic lodge scandal
that rocked Italy in the early 1980's.
Also on Friday, Renzi confirmed that his government will
hold a public referendum on its Senate revamp.
"After 4 votes in parliament, we'll hold a referendum,"
Renzi tweeted. "Why are the opposition shouting? What are they
afraid of? Of the votes of the Italians?".
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