House rejects Santanché no-confidence motion

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 4 - The Lower House on Thursday rejected a no-confidence motion in Tourism Minister Daniela Santanché, with 213 MPs voting against, 121 in favour and three abstentions.
    Santanché, a leading member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, was not in the House for the vote as she had ministry-related engagements.
    The motion was backed by all of the opposition parties except for the centrist Italia Viva (IV) group amid criminal probes into the minister's business activities.
    On Wednesday the outcome of a separate no-confidence motion against Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini was similar.
    Santanché has said she would quit if she were prosecuted.
    In the most serious case against her, she could face charges of aggravated fraud against the Italian national pensions and social security institute INPS over alleged irregular management of funds made available for redundancy payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, following a probe into allegedly improper business practices related to her former Visibilia publishing empire.
    The 62-year-old minister, who sold her stake in Visibilia when she became minister, has denied all wrongdoing.
    She has said she is innocent and has vowed to clear her name if the cases come to court.
    The other cases involve alleged false accounting, alleged fraudulent bankruptcy, and alleged money laundering.
    The motion against Salvini, presented over his League party's ties with the United Russia party, was defeated with 211 votes against and 129 in favour.
    Before Tuesday's vote, the League said that the agreement it had with the ruling party in Russia party was no longer valid following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Salvini has also been under fire for saying that "a people is always right when it votes" following Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent landslide re-election and for failing to blame Putin for the death in a Siberian prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
    Salvini has expressed admiration for Putin several times in the past, but he has also condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
    (ANSA).