According to BNN, Baltic News Network, quoting Al Jazeera reporting, the Italian government has collapsed.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has resigned following a decision by the far-right League party to present a no-confidence motion in the 14-month old coalition government.
The move on Tuesday leaves Italy in a political vacuum until President Sergio Mattarella decides whether to form a new coalition or call an election after talks with parties in the coming days.
Mattarella charged Conte with heading a caretaker administration after he handed in his resignation, pending consultations on a new government which are set to begin at 14:00 GMT on Wednesday.
The crisis began on August 8 when Matteo Salvini, the head of the League party, declared his alliance with the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement was dead and called for elections, a move he hopes will make him prime minister.
Addressing parliament on the turmoil unleashed by the League's move, Conte accused Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and interior minister, of trying to drag down the coalition for personal and political gain, and putting the nation at risk of financial instability.
"I'm ending this government experience here," Conte, who does not belong to either of the coalition parties, said in his almost hour-long speech to the chamber.
Widespread reporting including:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/world/europe/italy-pm-giuseppe-conte-resign.html
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/italian-prime-minister-to-resign-declaring-end-of-government-11566310341
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/italian-premier-quits-blames-deputy-1.5253440
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:56AM (14 children)
what's new?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Italy_by_time_in_office [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:00AM (13 children)
Rightwing nationalism being successfully tossed aside before people got killed. New and different, now if the US can git'er done before we go literally Nazi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:12AM (9 children)
Hear! Hear!
Get out and vote, fellow USA citizens.
Get active politically and take democracy back into the hands of the people, instead of the corp.'s and donors.
Check out wolf-pac.com to get money out of politics.
rts008
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:45AM (8 children)
Today, I went to the Driver's License office for just one reason: I was not eligible for online renewal because, according to them, I had never proved to the state of Texas that I was a citizen of the US. Last election in Texas, I had to have photo ID to prove my identity so I could vote, and the driver's license was an acceptable form of photo ID. I was not asked then if I was a citizen of the US, presumably because having a valid driver's license establishes that. The state could easily ask the federal government for citizenship status, but no, they want it done in the most painfully archaic "papers please" way possible. I had to go to a government office with official paper documents. Naturally, the bureaucracy is underfunded and overworked, and has no choice but to make people wait for hours. I got through in a relatively fast 90 minutes.
I understand what this nonsense is really all about. They don't seriously doubt that I am a genuine citizen. They're trying to discourage people from voting. All this crap at the government office is pure cover, so they can claim that their voter purging processes are not discriminatory. I and many other citizens are being used by the state to put on this fake show of honesty and fairness. They might also hope that all these hoops fatigue some voters. It might discourage urban millennials who have set themselves up so that they don't need a car, which is of course the very voters the conservatives want to shut off, as the young are more likely to vote liberal, or so goes the conventional wisdom. However, the US being such an automobile oriented nation, most people will be much more tenacious about doing whatever it takes to get a driver's license,
So, instead of doing nothing while I waited, I spent my time at the government office chatting up people and pointing this out to them. Showing them that they were being used. They were being forced to give up their day to be unwitting participants in an odious charade. And, what do you know, but most everyone I talked to became even more angry and offended with the state of Texas, and the right wingers who are running things.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @04:15AM (1 child)
What is an Italian doing in Texas?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @12:02PM
Penance? Time?
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Thursday August 22 2019, @11:12AM
Your experience was likely caused by the "REAL ID Act". [upgradedpoints.com]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Thursday August 22 2019, @11:16AM
Unless things have changed since my time in the US, it does not. I've never been a US citizen, but when I lived there as a student, I had no trouble obtaining a driver's license. In fact, having a driver's license was just about mandatory, because everyone expected me to have one: "two forms of ID" meant driver's license and a credit card, not passport and a credit card.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:24PM
Its because California was giving out drivers licenses to illegals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @05:06PM (2 children)
no, it's b/c illegal aliens are being sent in to vote for democrats, tammany hall style. quit acting stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @06:20AM (1 child)
Voter fraud doesn't happen in any significant numbers, even according to the Heritage Foundation, of all things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @07:34PM
Election fraud on the other hand.... all signs point to Republicans.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:10PM (2 children)
LOL salvini is no orban, he is fine with immigration as long as integration is achieved. In other words, he expects the por guy whom he hosts in his house not to begin dictating what to eat in the house while he rapes his daughter. Now I know this simple concept is lost when immigrants are seen as the way to achieve the destruction of the old classes, but maybe when USrael missiles land on the new founded islamic republics of europe you will consider the plan to have backfired a bit and the old solution of being in charge of a territory as viable, who knows.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @05:50PM (1 child)
>> he is fine with immigration as long as integration is achieved.
That's BS. He is fine to use immigrants as enemies to get more votes.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 24 2019, @08:32PM
Those are not immigrants, those are the bricks of the new society as wanted by the 0.1% Not even actual immigrants like them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqgiQG51EKU [youtube.com]
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:58AM (8 children)
Somebody's trying to make the American system look extremely stable
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:42AM
The American system is stable. That is the biggest problem with it. You've had the same two parties in control for well over a century with no real opportunity for new blood to enter the system.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:47AM
American stability means each imperial president gets eight whole years to rule by executive order and wage war producing yet another generation of PTSD veterans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @09:26AM (1 child)
Check out China, they've further advanced to a one party system...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @12:05PM
China still has a two party system. Their 2nd party just happens to be called the Imprisoned party.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @01:44PM
Genius!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 23 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)
Italy has always been this way [euronews.com]:
I have no idea how Italy has not dissolved into a Somali/Afghani warlord system, but it hasn't. They're even considered a central member of the EU. How such chaos can co-exist with German Ordnung is a mystery.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday August 23 2019, @03:59PM
How such chaos can co-exist with German Ordnung is a mystery.
:-) Beautiful!
We have troops there to keep the peace.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 24 2019, @08:59PM
The government crisis is a tool for justifying inaction. The keywords are "riforme istituzionali". When you hear a newly elected government utter that, it means "ha we fooled you once again, we're not gonna take concrete steps to address actual problems, see you next elections"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:00AM
"Coalition of Right-Wing, Anti-Establishment Parties "
So, they achieved their goal?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:18AM
Fix Italy Again Tony
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:46AM (2 children)
This is the kind of thing you read in history books like an Archduke being assassinated.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:56AM (1 child)
It's Italy. They argue about everything but surrender or run away when someone raises a fist. The worst that could happen is a shortage of Dominoes Pizza or spaghetti tree pickers.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:21AM
There is no Domino pizza here, pal. If I ever get to test one I will tell you why. Even if the millennials with their alcohol-burned taste buds have already welcomed Oreos and Starbucks.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:17AM
Yakima, WA also lost its government: Montes v. City of Yakima - https://www.aclu-wa.org/cases/montes-v-city-yakima-0 [aclu-wa.org]
How to steal a state budget: McCleary, et al. v. State of Washington - Supreme Court Case Number 84362-7: https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/supremecourt/?fa=supremecourt.mccleary_education [wa.gov]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:18AM (13 children)
The lega-m5s coalition had surprised because of the severing of a lega/Berlusconi axis that lasted since 94.
All the media in Italy had been strongly against this government, which I credit for having politicians drop the mask and say, hey government you cannot do that because we have up sovereignty in exchange for getting shafted by EU.
So basically it has been a great year with media attacking the government at any opportunity and the guy in the street smelling the bullshit sometimes even defending the government, which for you partisan red/blue usians might seem normal, well not around here. I felt part of a Nation.
But but the cracks showed, nobody refrained from thinking small. M5S were afraid of salvini stealing the scene instead of presenting thselves as the more level headed, Salvini wanting to capitalize on the recent electoral success instead of concentrating on reforms. Possibly one or both parties were a bluff. But all the others, the old guard and the new sovranists have shown the same myopic attitude or more, so they are surely more fraudulent.
Probably fed too optimistic data, Salvini tried a bluff, felt the ground slipping beneath his feet, and m5s responded with another bluff by speaking with the leftists. Now all is in the hands of a pro EU Mattarella which is a disaster. The EU cannot wait to vindicate the feeble attempts at regaining sovereignty. Reminder that a system which tolerates corruption and taxation as long as the mathematically unpayable public debt is kept in check, while closing an eye on France and Germany dirty games, is evil.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aiwarrior on Thursday August 22 2019, @07:30AM (11 children)
> M5S were afraid of salvini stealing the scene instead of presenting thselves as the more level head
Conte did. I heard the speech from a right wing leaning newspaper and even them noted that Conte has been relatively patient while Salvini tries to his numbers all the time. His Rosary/Chaplet(I do not know the word for Terço in English) in the senate by the side of Conte was pathetic.
Salvini is a Mussolini. He was a freaking Padanian Communist, so a professional agitator. He still is a true National Socialist, all with his big national projects. It is extremely disappointing that a major country can see anything in such a low life.
To give USians context. Trump has some borderline racist ideas, but when push comes to shove he stands by his logic of the deal. He is actually more predicable if you see the logic through the deal making cowboy. One may not like it but it is in the rules, and he follows it. This Salvini fellow is all about mob power, a-la Mussolini and black shirts. If not for the EU, i have no doubt he would make a coup. This is the kind of snake.
Of course Salvini is just the consequence not the cause. The migration problem was and is extremely unfair to Italy because as they are closest, like Greece, they take the brunt of the refugees. European solidarity was nowhere to be seen. Even my mother shares this opinion: We paid Turkey to deal with the refugees, yet we shitted on Italy. Salvini is our reward.
I support EU project dearly. It is the reason i can live in another country easily and safely. But the German and France grip on these kind of issues is disgusting and may lead to huge issue with Italy. Also, we need to stop pretending we are all nice and good and go nation building to the north Africa. YEah I know this has not worked out well for the US, but US went nation building in freaking Iraq and Vietnam. We are talking about cutting the crap and invest there and *force* a state to exist, even if by violence. I am pretty sure it would be more stable than what we are brewing.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 22 2019, @10:37AM
>Conte did
Conte USED TO. Then when Salvini tried a timid step back he went along with the crisis. Big mistake.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by loonycyborg on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:15PM (9 children)
Volumes of refugees from middle east are so small compared to population density of European countries such as Italy that the whole refugee thing being a political issue cannot be caused by anything other but casual racism among European population. And only one kind of people can be casually racist: those who happen to be jerks and dolts at the same time. Public policy shaped by interests of such people would make life worse for pretty much everyone.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:45PM (7 children)
You are not considering demographics and the tendency of the previous governments to have natives finance and immigrants live on welfare. Plus, you believe official numbers. Plus you don't even notice the commies who switched already from "they are an insignificant percentage" to "we need to accomodate their customs, there are too many of them to ignore theit instances".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:50PM (6 children)
According to wikipedia entire population of italy is 60m and syria 18m. Just by how many billions wrong are official demographics? With this population imbalance it's more likely that italy will impair syria's cultural norms with their sheer numbers than other way around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @07:39PM
Don't logic with Bot, it is incapable. Irony as usual with RWNJs.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @03:19AM (1 child)
If you think it is Syrians coming in mass to Italy, you're mistaken. There's an invasion of surplus population from north and west Africa, not under political repression, just purely economically interested to work (or be) in Europe.
Do-gooders had been doing the coyotes' work for them, picking up people in rust buckets at sea and delivering them into Italy. That pipeline was making it attractive for even more people to try and come over, until Italy began imposing criminal sanctions on the do-gooders to the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the mainstream media.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 24 2019, @09:04PM
When the troll is factually correct.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 23 2019, @10:01AM (2 children)
According to Wikipedia, the population of North Africa, the countries of Africa which border on the Mediterranean, is somewhere around 190m, which is a bit less manageable a number. Having said that, I suspect Bot is more concerned about the presence of Islamic cooties than the raw numbers of people involved.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday August 23 2019, @10:35AM (1 child)
Seems most of them are concentrated in Egypt which has 90m alone. And Egypt doesn't seem to be singled out as major source of immigration. Probably locals love their Nile too much to leave.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:04PM
You people on the other side of the pond see nothing. Do you think it is Syria? Lol. There are convoys all the way from Cote-de-Ivoir.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @05:15PM
There's nothing morally wrong about a people wanting to keep the race/culture/family they have built in tact and not turned into dhimmis in their own goddamned country by hordes of invading retards. It's clear you have been brainwashed with anti-goyim "Racism" propaganda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @07:38PM
Posts like these are very reassuring, you know the agencies are watching and pushing their versions of reality. Not saying the info is wrong, it probably is expertly sourced.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday August 22 2019, @04:47AM (1 child)
Only hearing good things about this story. Even Vox Day seems to approve and he has been living in Italy for years so probably knows what is what.
The fire rises.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:21AM
Even Vox Day! Well, that is one Nazi in favor of a Fascist government in Italy! Next, he will suggest the invasion of Ethiopia, or the indefinite detention of children in concentration camps. Yeah, Vox Day! Fascism today, Fascism tomorrow, Fashionistas forever! You are such a Nazi, jmorris. Do you have your cyanide pill handy?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @04:56AM (5 children)
So, aristarchus "prompted" this FA? Hmmm, time to go look at the original submission.
Ja, lots of work for the janrinok!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:13AM (4 children)
At least the submission we received was in English - a prerequisite for any submission - so less work than has sometimes been the case. Just delete all the editorialising, go to the original source and not the secondhand story, and extract the information for the story.
But I was able to keep the dept contents.....
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:26AM (3 children)
"When the Fine Article hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's amore! When the political spin makes you think you had too much gin, that's aristarchus!"
Saved the dept. line. A modest compensation for all the work that Soylentils do to submit content not scrapped by bots.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:55AM (2 children)
It's 'scraped' by bots, not scrapped.
Bots are used by our community to select stories on IRC for publication. A large proportion of the subs that we receive are submitted by community members this way and are therefore processed by bots. Exec, MrPlow, Arthur_T_Knackerbracket, and upstart are all bots which enable the community to submit stories quickly and easily. 34 of the current 45 submissions (75%) were processed by software to get to the submissions page. Without them we would not have enough submissions for a single day.
We try to make it easy for people to make submissions. Are you advocating that we return to the quill and parchment as the preferred method of submission?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 22 2019, @07:46AM (1 child)
Sorry, from my perspective, it is hard to tell the difference.
I propose carved marble tablets. Takes some time to do, giving the submitter time to ponder whether the submission is really worth the trouble.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday August 22 2019, @07:58AM
I'm in favour of this - perhaps it will reduce the number of alt-right submissions that we get from a certain community member.... (very large grin)!
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimios on Thursday August 22 2019, @05:26AM (3 children)
1. Left wing government gets elected with promises of social programs and employee benefits
2. Left wing government fucks up economy with social programs
3. Left wing government drops in approval because of bad economy
4. Right wing government gets elected with promises of fixing economy
5. Right wing government fixes economy with unpopular measures by crippling the public sector and favoring corporations over people
6. Right wing government drops in approval because public sector and employees unhappy
7. GOTO 1
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday August 22 2019, @08:14AM
M5S ranks 1st among other parties in welfare expansion, environmental protection, and market regulation, where welfare expansion meant the expansion of public social services (excludes education), environmental protection meant policies in favor of preserving/conserving the environment, and market regulation meant policies designed to create an equitable and open economic market.
That’s “right wing”?
Cool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:21PM (1 child)
* middle of the road centrist party somehow manages to get into power.
* manages to set up a very balanced sustainable slow growth economy
* solid but uninspired social programs and semi-subsidized healthcare.
* everything balanced on knife edge but working.
* external instability rocks the boat.
* meta-stable situation collapses.
* Right and Left flip the table
* Back to Boom Bust cycles.
OR
* Balancing act somehow lasts 20 years.
* middle of the road centrist party becomes entrenched.
* Some complete sociopath realizes path to power is become party leader.
* State devolves into single party state, and infighting between semi-right and semi-left members of the party is the new norm.
(Score: 2) by deimios on Friday August 23 2019, @05:10AM
This observation was from my home country, from the shithole of Europe. Didn't see a centrist government in the last 20 years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @08:24AM
https://www.facebook.com/sandro.brusco.5/posts/2195980817194966 [facebook.com]
quote in full:
«Sandro Brusco
21 agosto alle ore 05:09 ·
Sometimes friends and colleagues ask me about what's going on in Italy, especially at time of government crises. This is a brief summary for those who want to spend two minutes to learn what is going on.
Nothing dramatic and everything quite predictable. The bottom line: Italy had a long period of government instability mainly because of its proportional system. The system was (partially) changed in 1994 but it never was entirely majoritarian. After a number of reforms and pronouncement from the Supreme Court the system went back to being essentially proportional in the last election. Thus, in terms of government duration, we are back to the period 1948-1994, the proportional period, in which governments lasted between 12 and 18 months. This government was installed in June 2018, so it basically reached maturity. From that point of view, things are actually quite boring,
The policy part is also boring. All political forces are determined to avoid any serious discussion on what ails the Italian economy, namely lack of productivity growth and public debt, since the perception (I believe correct) is that anything done to solve these problems would be unpopular and it would cause a loss of votes. So the problems will keep festering until they solve themselves, one way or the other. The optimistic view is that the world economy might go back on a boom (not now, but at some point in the future) and the export sector, which in Italy is quite strong, will help the rest of the economy to muddle through. The pessimistic view is that at some point there will be a default on the debt. The spread on 10y German bonds is about 200 plus basis points, so that possibility is clearly factored in by the market.
And that's all I have to say about Italy.»
CYA