“Whatever happens, I wanted to tell you that it was an honor to work together in this government,” said Di Maio, who serves as deputy prime minister in the cabinet.
Conte is set to address parliament later on Tuesday to defend his record after the 5-Star’s coalition partner, the far-right League, said it would present a motion of no-confidence in the administration.
A parliamentary vote has not yet been scheduled and there is great uncertainty over how the political turmoil will end.
However, Conte is widely expected to resign later in the day, opening the way for President Sergio Mattarella to launch formal consultations with parties to see if a new coalition can be formed. Failing that he will dissolve parliament.
League leader Matteo Salvini has demanded early elections, 3-1/2 years ahead of schedule, confident that his surging popularity in the opinion polls will sweep him into power and push the anti-establishment 5-Star into opposition.
Di Maio said 5-Star lawmakers would stand by Conte, who is a law professor with no political affiliation. “Each of us knows that we are on the right side of history,” Di Maio said in a post on Facebook.
“The League will have to answer for its wrong decision to bring everything down, opening a government crisis in the middle of August ... just to chase the polls,” he added.
Political sources told Reuters on Monday that Italy’s opposition Democratic Party has held "good", initial contacts with 5-Star over the possibility of forging a new coalition.
The crisis
Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte lit into his deputy premier, Matteo Salvini of the League, saying Salvini’s decision to spark a political crisis was “irresponsible,” motivated by personal ambition -- and will ultimately bring down the curtain on the fractious coalition that led the country for just over a year.
In a speech to the Senate in Rome, Conte lashed out at Salvini, saying it isn’t in Italy’s interests to hold elections every year. The premier also accused his deputy of not properly responding to allegations in the so-called Russiagate case and said he had overstepped his role as minister.
The government’s actions "terminate here," Conte said, laying the blame for the collapse of the coalition squarely with Salvini and his personal agenda.
Salvini pulled his support from the governing alliance with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement this month, saying the coalition no longer has a working majority. The 46-year-old anti-immigration hardliner has been seeking to cash in on strong poll ratings and upended the political establishment with a mid-summer power grab while parliament was in recess.
At stake is whether Italy’s mountain of public debt -- a chronic concern for both European officials and international investors -- will be managed by a right-wing ideologue set on confrontation with Brussels. Salvini on Tuesday promised Italians 50 billion euros ($55 billion) of tax cuts and public spending if he can take control of the government.
Italy’s 10-year bonds rallied during the speech, with yields dropping three basis points to 1.41%. The spread over those on German bonds was at 210 basis points, having touched 179 basis points last month, the lowest level in over a year.
Salvini’s gambit has run into trouble in recent days, with Five Star and the opposition Democratic Party weighing an alliance to thwart him. Though both groups acknowledge that there have been contacts about a possible government together, they’d make for an uncomfortable alliance, having traded insults and clashed over policy since the last general elections last year.
(Published by Reuters and Bloomberg, August 20 2019)
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