Distrust divides, blocks reforms (2)

(ANSA) - Vatican City, December 5 - The No victory in Italy's Constitutional reform referendum confirms "the peculiarities of a country that is now divided, united only by a mutual distrust that translates into a fruitless stasis in both government action and in reform of the State," Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano said on its front page Monday in an article on Premier Matteo Renzi's resignation. The daily said President Sergio Mattarella "now has to unpick a rather intricate knot" and will "first of all see if there are the conditions to carry on with this parliament". Apart from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the anti-euro Northern League, who are both pushing for a snap election, it said, the other parties seem to prefer either a technocratic government or an ad hoc government to reform the electoral law.