Renzi Torments Italy Coalition, Targets Justice Minister
Junior Partner Renzi Torments Italy Coalition, Targets Minister
(Bloomberg) --
Just when Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte thought he could finally focus on Italy’s troubles, his government is again under threat from friendly fire.
Matteo Renzi, a former premier and head of the small Italy Alive party, is threatening a no-confidence vote on a minister from a rival party if he doesn’t get his way on judicial reform. Conte’s plan to map out a new agenda for his government is in disarray.
The rekindling of tensions within the ruling coalition -- made up of the center-left Democrats, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and smaller parties including Renzi’s -- comes just weeks after Conte and pro-establishment forces scored a rare electoral victory against Matteo Salvini’s League.
Following the win in the region of Emilia-Romagna, the premier pledged to focus on reforms to help lift Italy’s ailing economy.
At issue now: Five Star’s campaign to scrap time limits on trials following an initial verdict. Italy’s notoriously slow justice system means trials often run out of time before a final sentence. Italy Alive says the Five Star plan would keep trials going on forever.
But there’s also a separate the dilemma for Renzi, whose party is at 4% in opinion polls. Should he stick with the coalition, or risk triggering early elections that could see his party fail to reach the threshold for seats in parliament?
As he ponders his next move, Renzi has found a target in Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede, a lawmaker from Five Star, with whom the ex-premier has clashed regularly over the years. Amid Renzi’s calls for a confidence motion, Conte has sought to hammer out a compromise -- so far to little effect.
Italians vote March 29 in a referendum on cutting the number of lawmakers in both houses of parliament. Reforms triggered from that vote would mean that the earliest a national election could be held would be July.
--With assistance from Ross Larsen and Samuel Dodge.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Jerrold Colten, Alessandro Speciale
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