Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi won a vote of confidence in the government in the Senate today, but a boycott by the three leading parties of his coalition will lead to the end of his government of national unity.
The vote was 95 to 38 for Draghi's government, but it was an empty victory.
Draghi lost the support of three important members of his coalition: Forza Italia, the right-wing party led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, League, the far-right group of populist Matteo Salvini, and the populist group Five Star Movement (M5S).
Those mass departures will logically lead to Dragi's resignation. He has repeatedly said that he will not remain in his place if he does not retain broad support, which is no longer the case today.
Due to the turmoil in the coalition, Dragi resigned last Sunday, but the Italian president refused and asked the prime minister to test the government's support in parliament.
The mass boycott of the 315-member senate took place despite the fact that in recent days, citizens have expressed in large numbers their wish for Dragi to remain at the head of the government, at a time when inflation and energy prices are soaring and the number of infections in the pandemic is increasing.
After a lively discussion in the upper house of the parliament, Dragi expressed his frustration towards the parties, some of which showed dissatisfaction that their position was not taken into account. Thus, the broad coalition that supported Dragi, which went from the left to the extreme right, ceased to exist.
"With bitterness but with a clear conscience, we will not participate in the vote," said Anna Maria Bernini, president of the Forza Italy group.
That party submitted its own proposal to the senate, proposing that Dragi stay but without the Five Star Movement, but Dragi called for a vote on the proposal of another senator. He proposed to vote on support for the outgoing government.
The League and the Five Star Movement followed the same stance as Forza Italia.
On the left center, on the contrary, the Democratic Party and Italia Viva have announced that they will vote confidence in the government, as well as the party Together for the Future, the new party of the head of diplomacy Luigi Di Maio, who left M5S with about fifty MPs at the end of June.
Bonus video:
