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Prime Minister Conte speaking in the Chamber of Deputies
Photo: GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE / AFP
Dramatic appeals and almost nine hours of uncertainty: In the fight for his political survival, Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has won the first of two important trials of power in the parliament in Rome.
Five days after ex-prime minister Matteo Renzi left the splinter party Italia Viva, the larger of two chambers of Conte's center-left alliance expressed its confidence.
Victory in the Chamber of Deputies was expected.
A showdown in the smaller Senate is to follow on Tuesday.
There, the government could still fail in the middle of the corona pandemic.
The government in Rome needs majorities in both houses of parliament.
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View of the electronic bulletin board in the Chamber of Deputies
Photo: Ettore Ferrari / dpa
In an emotional speech at lunchtime, the 56-year-old, non-party lawyer campaigned for the votes of the parliamentarians in the seething government crisis.
"Help us!" Shouted Conte during his almost hour-long speech.
He appealed to "the willing" of other parties to support his political project.
It wasn't until 9 p.m. that it was clear: Conte got 321 votes and thus an absolute majority.
Renzi broke the coalition last Wednesday when he left the alliance with his Italia Viva.
Since then, Conte and his major coalition forces, the Five Star Movement and the Social Democrats, have sought defectors and the help of other small parties in countless telephone calls.
The coalition, which has ruled since September 2019, had fallen out on the issue of the distribution of corona aid from the EU.
Conte has been Prime Minister for a good two and a half years.
At first he ruled with a different majority on the side of the Lega of Matteo Salvini.
The lawyer had already survived another break in the coalition in summer 2019 and formed the 66th government of the Italian Republic with new partners.
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kfr / dpa