Nicola Zingaretti: Head of the Italian Social Democrats resigns

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Social Democrat Zingaretti

Photo: Mauro Scrobogna / dpa

In Italy, the head of the social democratic Partito Democratico (PD), Nicola Zingaretti, has announced his resignation as chairman.

As a reason, the 55-year-old named in a statement on Facebook internal power struggles and quarrels, which he wanted to end with his move.

The PD press office in Rome confirmed the announcement.

Zingaretti's party is one of the bigger forces in the new government of ex-central bank chief Mario Draghi.

The crisis in the previous cabinet of Giuseppe Conte, supported by the PD, and the formation of the new alliance had intensified the power struggles in Zingaretti's party.

First there was trouble at the grassroots level because Draghi had only appointed PD men to the cabinet.

When the post of state secretary was filled in a second round, women were almost exclusively chosen for the PD.

However, this only moderated the waves in the party to a limited extent.

The development of their partners in the five-star movement is also causing concern among the Social Democrats: Since it became clear that ex-prime minister Giuseppe Conte should take over the leadership of the five-star, their polls have been climbing - currently they are included 22 percent.

Zingaretti didn't want a party conference for two years

The PD, however, fell by four points to 14 percent.

A dispute is now raging in the party, it is about one's own identity after the turbulent reign with the five stars and the profile in Draghi's technocratic government: In addition to the Lega ministers of Matteo Salvini and the Forza Italia people of Silvio Berlusconi, they have Social Democrats no longer have as much to say as in the previous administration.

Zingaretti did not want to lead these debates until the next regular party congress in 2023 - in the opinion of his opponents, it was far too late.

They called for a congress in the near future and threatened to split the party if their demand was not met.

The outgoing party leader also stated that the PD has mainly been talking about posts "for 20 days", but not about Italy's major problems in the corona pandemic.

He takes responsibility and will inform the other committees about the withdrawal.

"I have done my part in the hope that the PD will now speak again about the country's problems and commit itself to solving them," he wrote.

Zingaretti took over the PD chairmanship in March 2019.

In the new Draghi government, the populist five-star movement is also seen as internally torn.

Because of opposition to the new head of government, the party kicked 15 members from its Senate faction in mid-February.

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fek / hor / dpa / Reuters