No party is guardian of Italian democracy Conte tells ANSA

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 20 - 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte on Tuesday criticized parties that are telling people to vote for them on the grounds that democracy will be in danger if their rivals win Sunday's general election.
    "Our democracy is not in danger and it is arrogant of some parties to present themselves as the guardians of democratic legitimacy," ex-premier Conte, whose M5S is running independently from the big centre-right and centre-left blocs, told an ANSA Forum.
    Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta has said Italian democracy will be in peril if the centre-right alliance wins the election, especially if it gains 70% of the seats in parliament and is able to change the Constitution without a referendum.
    But Conte also criticized Giorgio Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and Matteo Salvini's League after the right-wing groups' MEPs last week voted against a European Parliament motion declaring that Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy.
    Meloni, who is favourite to become Italy's next premier with FdI leading in the polls and the centre-right looking in store for the landslide victory, has defended that position, saying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won elections in his country fair and square.
    "She says Orban was voted in, but Putin was also voted in many times with sensational results," Conte told the Forum.
    "But that does not mean that these are not governments that put gags on press freedom and force women to hear the heartbeats of fetuses before having an abortion". (ANSA).