Premier Matteo Renzi said Tuesday
that he is aiming to stay at the helm of government until 2023
if he manages to change Italy with his reformist agenda.
Italy will next have elections in 2018 if the government
lasts until the end of the current parliamentary term.
"Changing Italy is a breathtaking responsibility, but it's
the way I've chosen to be myself," he said in Milan.
"We will introduce the Anglo-American concept of two
terms and I aim to last until February 2023 at the most. After
that I'll be a free citizen. I have to change Italy, not an
office".
Renzi also said Tuesday that one in three of Italy's
politicians will lose their jobs if his government's
Constitutional reform to overhaul the country's political
machinery is approved in a referendum in October.
"If we win the referendum, one in three politicians will
go home, that's why everyone is against me," he told a group of
students in Milan.
The package features the controversial transformation of
the Senate into a leaner assembly made up of local-government
representatives with limited powers and completes the
elimination of the provincial layer of government.
Renzi also "there is no increase in migrants compared to
last year, there is only an increase in alarms for electoral
purposes".
This weekend local elections will be held in many Italian
cities, including Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Naples and
Trieste.
Renzi said "there are people still dying in the
Mediterranean and that's a fact" and "there is a need for a
reaction from Italy and the European Union but faced with those
risking dying at sea I prefer to lose a few points in the
election campaign but save lives".
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