Conte meditates resigning to form a third government

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during his Senate appearance last week in Rome.YARA NARDI / Reuters

Time passes faster and faster and Giuseppe Conte does not achieve results that provide him with a way out of the government crisis.

The prime minister of Italy has not yet managed to compact a support group to replace Italia Viva, the party that has withdrawn its ministers from the coalition with which he led the country.

This Monday, throughout the day, he has been convinced, helped by the almost unanimous opinion of his partners, that the only way is the resignation to try to form a third Executive under his own command.

On Wednesday, otherwise, he would face a key vote in the Senate that could permanently unseat him from power and open a crisis out of control that could even lead to an early election.

This Monday morning, Conte has received calls from most of his partners.

Panic began to spread in the corridors of the Chigi Palace.

"The pressure is maximum", they pointed out in their environment while the risk premium reached its highest since November.

Nobody saw clearly the passage through the Senate of the Minister of Justice, Alfonso Bonafede, who will have to give an account of the balance of the year on Wednesday.

The minister's presentation will end with a vote that is usually a little relevant procedure for the Executive.

In the midst of the crisis, with hardly any support for a simple majority, however, it could be the definitive staging of the impasse where the Executive is located.

"He does not have the numbers to overcome it if he does not agree to this operation," admit sources from the Democratic Party (PD).

"The best thing right now is to open the formal crisis," they insist.

The resignation of Conte, who would try to be commissioned to form a government again from the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, is already a demand from his allies and the presumed parliamentarians who should support him in the future.

But it was also the neglected request of the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, at the beginning of the crisis.

The solution would be to form a new Executive - the third in three years of the legislature - from scratch that would allow the new partners to be involved and reach a legislative pact.

"We have to find a solution in 48 hours," Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said in an interview on Sunday.

The problem is that Conte does not trust that, in the transit between one government and another, another name appears to replace him.

That is why he insisted on clinging to the chair in the Chigi palace.

The reality, however, benefits you.

If Conte was still prime minister on Monday afternoon, it is because there is no clear alternative name.

The hypothesis of replacing him with Di Maio (Movement 5 Stars), or the Minister of Culture, the social democrat Dario Franceschini, is not mature enough.

Nobody wants to lead an Executive right now that will only serve to reach January 2022, when the next president of the Republic is elected, and contain the advance of the right.

Then, probably, elections should be called.

"Conte is the most advanced balance point," said the PD leader, Nicola Zingaretti, on Monday morning, spinning a political argument that is more sustainable than mere survival.

The reality is that the prime minister is the only one capable of keeping the volatile 5-Star Movement compact - in the midst of the civil war - and a name that does not displease the social democratic world.

The group of defectors that the Chigi palace would have managed to reunite by promising various positions and subsistence in their seats - with escapees from Forza Italia, the mixed group and, perhaps, also from Italia Viva - wants the crisis to be formalized in order to acquire visibility and dignity Enough of a new group.

But Conte demands certain guarantees that he will be chosen to lead that third Executive if he resigns.

Somewhat difficult if Renzi is in the middle of the game.

The Florentine, deeply at odds with the prime minister, continues to think that Conte can easily be replaced.

If the formation of a third Executive depends on him, he will press to dislodge the

and his trusted environment definitively from the Chigi Palace.

Some parliamentarians from Italia Viva, however, have pledged their allegiance to Renzi in exchange for not throwing the country into chaos again if the opportunity presents itself to form a new government and emerge from the crisis it is in.

The hypothesis of a government of national unity is only being defended right now by Forza Italia.

Silvio Berlusconi, always with an eye on his companies, believes that this would provide more stability to the country.

But it's difficult.

The rest of the opposition parties (League and Brothers of Italy) prefer that elections be called as soon as possible, as the leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, recalled on Sunday.