Renzi eyes staying on until 2023 (2)

(ANSA) - Milan, May 31 - 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".