Premier Giuseppe Conte appealed to
the Senate to get behind his government on Tuesday on what is
set to be a day of reckoning after it was plunged into crisis by
Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva (IV) party pulling its support.
The executive faces the second of two crunch confidence votes
later on Tuesday.
It passed the first in the Lower House on Monday with an
absolute majority of 321 votes in favour, 259 against and 27
abstentions.
But the test in the Senate, where the government's majority was
already thin, is set to be even stiffer.
Conte is appealing to so-called 'constructor' lawmakers from
outside the ruling coalition to vote for the government and stop
it collapsing in the middle of the COVID-10 pandemic.
Conte told the Senate on Tuesday that the pandemic makes it more
important for his government to stay afloat.
"The country has united with the pandemic, with its suffering,"
he said.
"The government's sense of unity has increased. The reasons to
be together have increased".
The two senior partners in the ruling coalition, the 5-Star
Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), have
already rejected the idea of patching things up with ex-premier
Renzi.
But the PD has kept the door open to individual IV lawmakers
that break ranks from the centrist group.
Conte accused IV of having caused turmoil when it was within the
coalition.
He said it was guilty of continually making demands that were
"clearly divisive with respect to the sensitivities of the other
parties in the ruling majority.
"It is complicated to govern with those who continually
undermine a political balance patiently reached by the parties
of the coalition," he added.
The centre-right opposition has called for snap elections,
arguing that, even if the government survives the confidence
votes, if will be too weak to effectively rule the country.
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