Italian PM to Resign Despite Winning Confidence Vote

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi will likely resign despite winning a confidence vote in the upper house Senate on Wednesday.

Three main coalition parties refused to take part in the vote. However, the vote was approved 95 to 38 with many dozens of senators absenting themselves.

Last week, Draghi announced that he would resign from his post after an Italian political party in his ruling coalition refused to participate in the confidence vote.

“I will tender my resignation to the president of the republic this evening,” he told the Cabinet. “The national unity coalition that backed this government no longer exists.”

Draghi survived a no-confidence vote in the Italian Senate last Thursday, yet his government’s future was thrown into question due to a boycott of the vote by the populist Five Star Movement (5SM), a key coalition ally.

The movement opposed a new decree aimed at lowering inflation and battling rising energy costs. Nevertheless, analysts asserted that the opposition to this policy package is not so much ideological but a result of internal party disputes.

“The move by the M5S was largely triggered by turmoil prevailing within the ailing party rather than by meaningful policy differences with the executive,” Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of the consultancy firm Teneo, said.