Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement
(M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio reiterated Friday that the populist
Euroskeptic group was insisting on getting the Speakership of
the Lower House after Italy's hung parliament sits on March 23.
Di Maio said this choice was "essential" to "pave the way"
for the abolition of 'vitalizi' parliamentary pensions.
The M5S has long been waging a campaign to abolish these
pensions, which can be accrued after a very short time in
parliament.
They are this seen as the epitome of the waste and corruption
that the M5S has always said it stands against, regarding other
parties as inherently crooked.
Di Maio said that the choice of the two Speakers - the other
being in the Senate - was "crucial".
This, he said, was because the officials are "the arbiters"
of the parliamentary process.
Di Maio has spoken earlier this week to anti-migrant
Euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini, the other big winner
of the March 4 general election, and observers think the
rightwing populist League is likely to get the Speakership in
the Upper House.
The League scored an unexpectedly high 17.4% in the general
election in a centre-right coalition that collectively got 37%,
not enough for a parliamentary majority.
Salvini's group overtook Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia
(FI) party, which got just over 14%, and thus Salvini earned the
right to be the coalition's premier candidate.
The M5S got 32% of the vote, becoming Italy's top party by
far and eclipsing the centre-left Democratic Party, which
slumped to its worst-ever result at just over 19% and prompted
leader and ex-premier Matteo Renzi to resign.
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