Italy’s prime minister appeals for support in crunch vote that could bring down government

Giuseppe Conte addresses the Senate in Rome

Credit: AP

Italy’s prime minister appealed to parliament to continue backing his government on Tuesday, saying the coronavirus pandemic had hit the country like “a hurricane” and now was not the time for a political crisis.

Giuseppe Conte faces a confidence vote in the Senate, the upper house of parliament, later today, with the risk that if he loses he may have to resign.

That would tip Italy into deep uncertainty at a time when it is in the grip of a second wave of Covid-19 infections and confronts the worst economic downturn since the Second World War. The death toll so far is more than 82,000.

Mr Conte, a former law professor who was unknown until being chosen as prime minister in 2018 by the two parties in the coalition, won a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament on Monday.

But securing a majority in the Senate is a much tougher proposition after Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister, withdrew the support of his small Italia Viva party last week.

Mr Renzi, who accused the government of mishandling the response to the pandemic, took with him 18 senators.

Matteo Renzi sparked the crisis by withdrawing his support from the government last week

Credit: Barcroft

In an hour-long speech to the Senate, Mr Conte said the virus had hit Italy like a “hurricane”, deeply impacting the way of life and “collective destinies” of Italians.

“We are confronting an epochal challenge,” he said. The pandemic had generated a “primordial fear” among millions of Italians.

He said Mr Renzi’s decision to pull the plug on the coalition was unthinkable at a time when hundreds of people were dying each day and the health service was embarking on a mass vaccination programme.

Ordinary Italians had struggled to understand the reasons for the political crisis and politicians were “at risk of losing contact with reality.”

“This is a crisis that has come at a crucial time, in the midst of the pandemic, with families losing their loved ones,” said the prime minister, who wore a face mask throughout his address.

He said the coalition had handled an extremely challenging year “with responsibility” and said it had a “broad and courageous” agenda for the country going forward.

The country deserved a “cohesive government” which could push forward its post-pandemic recovery.

If he fails to win a comfortable majority, the coalition will be weakened and the political crisis could drag on for weeks.

The government’s standing would be “seriously damaged,” said Wolfgango Piccoli of the Teneo political consultancy.

“Conte would end up commanding an extremely shaky majority that would risk collapsing at any divisive vote in the coming months.

“While minority governments are nothing new in Italy, what will be unprecedented is a minority government (backed by an unwieldly coalition) attempting to lead the country out of the deepest economic crisis since World War II, in the middle of a pandemic, while also trying to create a multi-year plan to manage €209bn of recovery funding from the EU.”

Italy has a lamentable history of short-lived administrations and has had 66 governments and 29 prime ministers since the end of the Second World War.