Matteo Salvini’s allies have called for supporters to take to the streets in protest as Italy inches towards forming a new government that could shut him out of power for years.
The Five Star Movement, Mr Salvini’s former coalition partners, appear to be edging towards a new coalition with the centre-Left Democratic Party after the government collapsed last week.
Italian media reported that the Democrats are prepared to acquiesce to a Five Star demand that Giuseppe Conte, who resigned as prime minister last week, should be reinstated as the head of the new government.
Mr Salvini’s party, the League, is furious, pointing out that the party won 34 per cent of the national vote in May’s European parliament elections and that it was polling as high as 39 per cent earlier this month.
“Let’s hope that if a Democratic Party-Five Star government is formed, the people will rise up as soon as possible,” said Alessandra Locatelli, a League minister.
“A government made up of Five Star and the Democrats will not correspond to the sentiment of the people,” said Mr Salvini, who remains as interior minister and deputy prime minister in the lame duck administration.
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“If you make deals that are against nature, in the end the people will kick you out. Sooner or later, the judgement of the people will be heard.”
When he withdrew his support and declared the coalition dead this month, Mr Salvini’s hope was that the country would go to new elections, which would likely have crowned him prime minister as the head of a hard-Right coalition with the Brothers of Italy party.
Giorgia Meloni, the head of Brothers of Italy, condemned the prospect of a Democratic Party-Five Star government, saying that it was contrary to the votes of millions of Italians.
“They’re stealing the government by preventing Italians from going to a vote,” she said in a video address on Twitter.
Mr Salvini held back from calling for protests in the streets if the new government comes to fruition.
“I’m still working as interior minister and my job is to guarantee stability. I’m not interested in popular insurrections – those happened back in 1848,” he said.
Sergio Mattarella, the president, will meet the major parties on Wednesday to review progress and see who has the chance of forming a majority in parliament.
Ettore Ferrari/EPA REX
If no accord has been reached between the Democrats and Five Star, Italy will most likely head to new elections in the autumn.
Negotiations between the two possible partners stalled on Tuesday, after the Democrats apparently backtracked on a pledge to reinstate Mr Conte as prime minister, but later the talks resumed.
Mr Conte received the endorsement of Donald Trump, who wrote on Twitter: “Starting to look good for the highly respected prime minister of the Italian republic, Giuseppe Conte. A very talented man who will hopefully remain prime minister.”
In an early version of the tweet, President Trump managed to misspell Mr Conte’s first name as “Giuseppi”.
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