Grasso launches left party (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, December 4 - Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso on Sunday took the helm of a new party on the left of the Italian political spectrum, Liberi e Uguali - Free and Equal. The party is being formed by the merger of several groups on the left of the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
    It features many former prominent PD members who quit the party, largely due to hostility towards leader and ex-premier Matteo Renzi.
    They have ruled out forming an alliance with the PD for the general election that is set to be held early next year.
    Grasso, a former national anti-mafia prosecutor, recently left the PD in protest at how a new election law was pushed through parliament. At a meeting on Sunday, Grasso dismissed the argument that voting for Free and Equal would amount to wasting a vote on a small party and contribute to splitting the left, and possibly helping the centre right or the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) win.
    "The real useful vote is for us," said Grasso.