Anti-migrant Euroskeptic League
leader Matteo Salvini is "sorry but the damage is done" after
pulling the plug on Italy's first all-populist government over
policy differences with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement
(M5S), M5S leader Luigi Di Maio said.
Citing persistent divisions over a high-speed rail link with
France, Salvini's League filed a no confidence motion in Premier
Giuseppe Conte on August 9, effectively ending the 14-month
alliance with the M5S.
Di Maio reiterated that Salvini had done so because the
League was riding high in the opinion polls with 38%, compared
to 17% in the March 2018 general election, whereas the M5S's
support has slipped from 33% to 16%.
Di Maio said the M5S, the biggest parliamentary group, would
vote against the no confidence motion in Conte on August 20,
spelling its probable failure since the second-biggest group,
the centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD), is also
expected to vote against it.
That would leave President Sergio Mattarella, the arbiter of
the government crisis, in a quandary.
He may try to appoint a PD-M5S caretaker government if those
parties can iron out their own apparently irreconcilable policy
differences.
PD House Whip Graziano Delrio said Friday a German-style
government contract was needed if the two parties were to team
up in government.
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