Matteo Renzi has been threatening for weeks to withdraw his support for the coalition
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A former prime minister of Italy is being castigated for pushing the country into a political crisis as it struggles to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and a deepening economic crisis.
Matteo Renzi is threatening to withdraw support from the ruling coalition, precipitating a crisis that could see the government collapse.
His party, Italia Viva, has just two ministers in the coalition and there is speculation that they will announce their resignations at a press conference on Wednesday evening.
Many Italians are outraged that a party that can count on just three per cent of the national vote looks set to plunge the country into uncertainty as the death toll from Covid-19 reaches 80,000.
A poll published on Wednesday found that 46 per cent of Italians did not understand the reason for the crisis.
The Ipsos survey found that 73 per cent thought Mr Renzi was pursuing his own selfish political objectives rather than the interests of the country.
The former mayor of Florence was hailed as a boy wonder when he was elected prime minister in 2014 at the age of 39, making him the youngest premier in Italian history.
Nicknamed Il Rottamatore, or the Scrapper, he pledged to shake up Italy’s sclerotic economy and clean up the “bunga bunga” culture of showgirls and sexism left by Silvio Berlusconi.
But he staked everything on pushing a referendum on constitutional reform, which he lost, resulting in his resignation in 2016.
Ostensibly, the row is about how to spend the €200 billion that Italy has been promised by the EU to help it climb out of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
Mr Renzi disagrees with the plan drawn up by the coalition, saying that more money should be allotted to the health sector and that Italy should tap into a European Stability Mechanism credit line for health spending.
The Recovery Plan was approved by the cabinet late on Tuesday night, with Mr Renzi’s party abstaining.
But behind the budgetary disagreements, analysts say, is his hunger for more political power and an animosity towards Giuseppe Conte, the technocrat prime minister, who Mr Renzi feels is not up to the job.
“Renzi’s plan A is to get rid of Conte, but that is difficult. So plan B is to have a new Conte government but with a bigger role for Renzi’s party,” Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of politics, told The Telegraph.
“Renzi has just three per cent of votes so he has nothing to lose. He’s gambling. He wants to regain some sort of centrality, greater visibility.
“Conte made a mistake because he sidelined Renzi and although Renzi has only three per cent of the vote, his support is pivotal – he has 18 senators in the upper house and 30 MPs in the lower house,” said Prof D’Alimonte, from Luiss University in Rome.
Many MPs are furious with Mr Renzi for precipitating the crisis, saying that it could play into the hands of the Right.
If the crisis was to eventually lead to new elections, a Right-wing alliance of the League, the hard-Right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s party could win up to 50 per cent of the vote and enter government.
The more likely scenario, if the two Italia Viva ministers resign, is a period of uncertainty in which the prime minister consults the president, Sergio Mattarella, and tries to replace the 18 senators that Mr Renzi would withdraw from the coalition.
“If Conte cannot replace the 18 senators, he must either give Renzi a larger role in government or face early elections,” said Prof D’Alimonte. “No one wants an election apart from Matteo Salvini (the leader of the League) and Giorgia Meloni (the head of Brothers of Italy). But it will take two or three days for the situation to be clarified.”
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