Italian politics was thrown into turmoil on Thursday, with Prime Minister Mario Draghi offering his resignation only to have President Sergio Mattarella reject his resignation minutes later.
“Tonight I will resign in the hands of the President of the Republic. Today’s votes in Parliament are a very politically significant fact,” Prime Minister Draghi said in a statement from Rome.
Although Draghi had in fact won a vote of confidence in the Italian parliament earlier in the day, the populist Five Star Movement group — a member of his ruling coalition — abstained from the vote, signalling to the PM that his government was no longer sustainable, Il Giornale reported.
“The majority of national unity that has supported this government since its creation is no longer there. The confidence pact behind government action has failed,” he said.
The 5SM parliamentarians refused to participate in the vote over disagreements — including the construction of a garbage incinerator outside of Rome — with Draghi over the proposed financial relief bill for the ongoing energy and cost of living crisis in the country, which has sparked widespread protests against the government.
However, in a wild turn of events, President Sergio Mattarella refused to accept the resignation of Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the sixth prime minister of the country in the past ten years. Draghi has been widely described as one of the few politicians in the country able to maintain a unified government.
In a statement, President Mattarella’s office said that Mattarella “did not accept the resignation, and invited the prime minister to appear before parliament to make a statement.”
This story is developing…
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