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".
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