Italian president rejects Mario Draghi’s resignation as prime minister

Foreign minister accuses M5S leader of knowingly provoking the crisis in Italy

Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday rejected the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi, scheduled to be formalized tonight, after the “confidence pact” that kept the Executive cohesive following the absence of the 5-Star Movement in the vote on a question of confidence in the Senate was “broken”.

Draghi has announced his resignation considering that “the majority of the national unity that has supported the Government since its creation has left”, with the result that “the pact of confidence that underlies the action of the Government has failed”.

After the episode in the Senate, where the Government has pushed through, with the absence of 5 Star Movement, a question of confidence that sought the fast-track processing of a package of measures against inflation, Draghi has met with Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace, the President’s official residence.

At the conclusion of this first meeting, Draghi has summoned his Council of Ministers to inform them of his resignation from office, a decision that was scheduled to be made official this very night until President Mattarella has taken a new turn of events, rejecting the Prime Minister’s resignation, in what appears to be a gesture to try to gain time until a new government can be appointed.

According to a statement from the Presidency, Mattarella has invited Draghi to meet again to hold communications with the other members of the Government and to take stock of the situation generated after the results of the vote of confidence question in the Senate, reports Adnkronos.

After his first meeting with the Italian President, Draghi met with his Council of Ministers, before whom he assured that Thursday’s vote in Parliament was “very significant from a political point of view”, thus justifying his resignation.

From 5 Star Movement have defended that the absence of its members in the Upper House is due to disagreements with the substance and form of the proposal, sharply dissociating itself from any attempt to generate a crisis in the Executive.

The Prime Minister has also put in value his own commitment throughout his mandate to “continue along the common path” and try to “meet the needs” that have been transferred to them from the different political forces, as reported by the newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’.

“Thank you for your work and for the many results obtained. We should be proud of what we have achieved, in a very difficult moment, in the interest of all Italians,” Draghi said in his farewell speech to his ministers.

“CONTE PROVOKED THE CRISIS IN ITALY.”

Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has accused the M5S leader of consciously provoking the crisis in Italy. “I think this crisis has been planned for a long time. I call it Conte’s party because that is no longer the Movement,” he has pointed out.

Despite this, he has indicated, as reported by the newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’, that his heart “cries to see that on the other side of the world, in Moscow, in an autocracy, they celebrate the fall of one of the most powerful democracies in the world.

Di Maio was referring to the publication on Telegram of a message of a jocular nature from the vice president of the Russian Security Council, Dimitri Medvedev, showing a photo of Draghi and also of the British leader Boris Johnson due to his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party.

Next to their photos, an image appears indicating a character that has not yet been discovered and a question mark, taking for granted that the series of resignations among Western politicians is not over, TASS news agency has picked up.

Apart from these comments, the secretary general of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, has pointed out on his Twitter profile that “five days of work remain for the Parliament to confirm its confidence in Draghi’s government and Italy to come out as quickly as possible from the dramatic turn into which it is entering in these hours.”

For its part, the party of the Italian far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has stressed that the League “has been loyal, constructive and generous for a year and a half, but for weeks President Draghi and Italy have been victims of the M5S and the Democratic Party.”

“It is unthinkable that Italy suffers weeks of paralysis in a dramatic moment like this, no one should be afraid to give the word back to the Italians,” he said, alluding to the possibility of the dissolution of the Courts and the call for new elections.

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