Italian Left Opposes The New Government Led By Mario Draghi

The national convention of the Italian Left (SI) last Sunday decided to distance itself from the new Italian government led by Mario Draghi and to vote against the new cabinet in the vote of confidence motion in the parliament. Around 87 percent of the participants in the national assembly have demanded that the deputies of the left vote against the government in the vote of confidence. Ex-European Central Bank President Mario Draghi formed a new cabinet on Saturday comprising of technocrats and politicians from parties ranging from the social democrat Democratic party (PD), the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) to the far-right Lega Nord (LN) led by Matteo Salvini. The cabinet is likely to face a vote of confidence this week.

The new government was formed in Italy following the political crisis triggered by the resignation of Giuseppe Conte led PD-M5S coalition government. The Conte government lost majority in the parliament when the former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the leader of the centrist Italia Viva party, withdrew support to the PD-M5S-led government. Even though Conte managed to survive a vote of confidence in both houses of the parliament with narrow margins, he resigned as his negotiations with the parties for a stable majority did not succeed.

Nicola Fratoianni, spokesperson of the Italian Left (SI) stated that “the new government is not the government of the “bests” nor the right one for the future of the country. The way this government started, with Renzi sabotaging the policies of wealth redistribution, unfortunately negatively influences also the composition of the government.”

“We had outlined a path of political experiment with Giuseppe Conte: a dialogue between south and north, a difficult confrontation between forces of production and the world of work, an encounter between those who need protection and those who can offer it during this very hard crisis…They wanted to stop this experiment in order to rewind the tape, reintroduce some dogmas, some technocrats which is farthest from the ecological transition we need, accompanied by the champions of inequality and discrimination,” he added.

The Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) in Italy also slammed the formation of the new government in Italy. Maurizio Acerbo, national secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, said that “We are again faced with the disclosure that the center-right-center-left opposition is fake and fictitious. In the government there are important ministers presented as technicians,  but actually they are a direct expression of multinational companies, private universities and research centers.”

Various groups including the Communist Party (PC), Italian Communist Party(PCI), Potere al Popolo among others have also expressed their opposition to the Mario Draghi-led government.