Finocchiaro says backing Orlando

(ANSA) - Rome, February 28 - 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.