Rome – As the coronavirus pandemic the death toll is rising globally, the latest victim being the Italian government. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigned, causing a political crisis while the country is in the depths of its COVID-19 epidemic.
Conte’s center-left coalition government began to falter last week, when former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi received the support of his divided party, denying Conte an absolute governing majority. Renzi had condemned Conte in connection with the management of the health crisis and the economic recovery plan.
Last spring, Italy was the epicenter of the global pandemic and became the first country to impose a national blockade on trying to contain the virus – despite the disabling blow it brought to the economy.
The effort was successful, as the contagion and mortality rate slowed significantly during the summer. But last fall, after the government eased deadlock restrictions, cases and mortality began to rise, and the second wave proved even worse than the first.
Currently, the death toll is over 85,000 people. In a country of 60 million, this makes it the fifth highest COVID-19 mortality rate per capita in the world.
Given the early onset of the virus in Italy, the economy has been battling the effects of the pandemic for longer than most other nations. It is the largest beneficiary of a European Union investment plan for economic recovery from coronavirus, with Rome receiving around $ 243 billion in EU funding.
Prime Minister Conte fought with Renzi’s party, his smaller coalition ally, over how to spend EU recovery funds, and Renzi left the coalition.
Massimo Di Vita Archive / Massimo Di Vita / Mondadori / Getty Portfolio
But despite the alleged shortcomings of Conte’s government, polls show that Italians still largely approve of his leadership and disapprove of upsetting the aircraft at such a critical time in the country’s history, when hundreds of Italians die every day, companies face bankruptcy. vaccinations take longer than expected.
Conte may not be gone for good. He expects to try to gather a new wider coalition of parliamentarians to fill the gap left by the Renzi party.
For a new political income, Conte demonstrated strange survival skills. Few Italians have heard of the obscure law professor when he was appointed in 2018 to lead a coalition between Italy’s two largest populist parties, the 5 Star Movement and the Anti-Migrant League party.
In 2019, the League gave its support and tried to force the elections. But Conte brokered a new alliance, bringing Renzi’s center-left Democratic Party to the board.
Notoriously unstable, Italy has had 66 different governments since World War II.