Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Wednesday that he and his 5-Star Movement (M5S) will show that they are not clinging to their positions when it comes to a vote on cutting the number of lawmakers in parliament by over 300 next month. League leader Matteo Salvini has frequently accused the M5S of being preoccupied with keeping their posts after they teamed up with the Democratic Party (PD) to form a new government under Premier Giuseppe Conte after he pulled the plug on the first Conte executive last month.
"At the moment everyone is saying that this government was formed to keep hold of positions but, on the contrary, this government is cutting them and it will show those who brought down the (previous) government in order to avoid the reduction in parliamentarians," Di Maio said on Facebook from New York, where he is taking part in the UN General Assembly. He was commenting after it was announced that the Lower House would start examining the bill to cut the number of MPs on October 7 for its final reading.
Di Maio has said the bill will be a big test of the trustworthiness of the PD as government partners.
"We'll see who's brave enough to vote against the cut in parliamentarians," the minister said.
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