Minister for Relations with
Parliament Anna Finocchiaro said Tuesday she was backing Justice
Minister Andrea Orlando in his bid to challenge former premier
Matteo Renzi as leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
"I'm supporting Orlando, he can rebuild the party," said
Finocchiaro, a senior PD lawmaker.
"I've never been philo-Renzi, I've always been loyal to him
but autonomous," she said of the former PD leader, who resigned
recently to trigger what is seen as an almost automatic
re-election.
Finocchiari added that the recent PD split, with a
dissenting leftwing minority forming the new Democratic and
Progressive Movement (MDP), was a "mistake" that would play into
the hands of populists and the centre right.
"A Left that is outside a major party can't make it," she
said of the MDP.
PD primaries will take place on April 30 and the winner will
be publicly proclaimed at the start of May.
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