ROMA: Italy’s president on Monday named a former IMF economist as caretaker prime minister to lead the country into new elections, possibly as soon as the autumn, after a political storm whipped up by the collapse of a populist bid for government.
The eurozone’s third largest economy had lurched into a fresh crisis when President Sergio Mattarella on Sunday vetoed the nomination of fierce euroskeptic Paolo Savona as economy minister in a planned coalition of the far-right League party and anti-establishment Five Star Movement.
His rejection of Savona and nomination of Carlo Cottarelli as caretaker prime minister sparked angry calls for his impeachment as Savona had the backing of the majority of lawmakers.
“This isn’t democracy, this isn’t respect for the popular vote. It’s the latest slap in the face from the powers-that-be that says Italy should be a slave, scared and precarious,” League leader Matteo Salvini charged.
The chaos — the latest chapter in a drawn-out political saga after an inconclusive March election — sent Italian stocks tumbling by as much as two percent at one stage, and bond yields surging, with Italy’s debt risk premium hitting its highest level since November 2013.
Cottarelli, 64, was director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department from 2008 to 2013 and became known as “Mr Scissors” for making cuts to public spending in Italy.
He said that should his technocrat government win parliamentary approval, it would stay in place until elections at the “start of 2019.”
But if parliament fails to approve his government, a new election would be held “after August” — the most likely outcome given only the center-left Democratic party has announced that it would vote in favor.
Salvini and Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio furiously denounced the presidential veto, blasting what they called meddling by Germany, debt ratings agencies and financial lobbies.
The League and the Five Star — who together have a parliamentary majority — abandoned their plans to form a coalition government after the president’s veto led to their approved nominee for prime minister, lawyer and political novice Giuseppe Conte, stepping aside.
Di Maio denounced the replacement of “a government with a majority with one that won’t obtain one” and called for the president to be impeached.
“I hope that we can give the floor to Italians as soon as possible, but first we need to clear things up. First the impeachment of Mattarella... then to the polls.”
Salvini, a fellow euroskeptic who was Savona’s biggest advocate, said the anti-establishment government failed because the “powers-that-be, the markets, Berlin and Paris” had decided against “some of our ministers.”
According to the Italian constitution, the president nominates both the prime minister and, following proposals from the premier, the cabinet.
The most famous example of a president denying a choice of PM came in 1994 when Eugenio Scalfari refused then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s choice of his own lawyer — Cesare Previti — as justice minister.
On Sunday, Berlusconi showed support for Mattarella’s “safeguarding the interests of Italian families and businesses,” which led his pre-election ally Salvini to threaten to break their alliance if the billionaire media mogul voted in favor of the caretaker government.
But Giorgio Mule, parliamentary spokesman for Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, which won 37 percent of the vote in March alongside the League and two smaller far-right parties, said Monday it would not approve Cottarelli’s team.
“let’s give the floor back to the Italians,” Mule said.
Former constitutional court judge Mattarella said he had accepted every proposed minister except Savona, who has called the euro a “German cage” and has said that Italy needs a plan to leave the single currency “if necessary.”
The 76-year-old said he had done “everything possible” to aid the formation of a government, but that an openly euroskeptic economy minister ran against the parties’ joint promise to simply “change Europe for the better from an Italian point of view.”
In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen joined in the outrage of the Italian populists, accusing the president of a “coup d’etat” and saying the “European Union and financial markets are again confiscating democracy.”
But French President Emmanuel Macron backed Mattarella, saying he saying he was fulfilling his role as the guarantor of the country’s institutions with “courage and responsibility.”
Germany was more cautious, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman saying: “Respect for Italian democracy and democratic institutions requires us to wait and see which government will lead the country and which ideas it will present to its EU partners.”
Italy heads to new elections as caretaker PM named
Italy heads to new elections as caretaker PM named
- Italy's president appoints a former IMF official as interim prime minister with the task of planning for snap polls and passing the next budget.
- The decision to appoint Carlo Cottarelli to form a stopgap administration sets the stage for elections that are likely to be fought over Italy's role in the European Union and the euro zone
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS: Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.
There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.
Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Qur’an” on the steps of City Hall. But it was not clear if he carried out that plan.
Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.
Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for US Senate in Florida.
In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.
“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
National Guard ‘staged and ready’
The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.
The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.
During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.
On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.
Living in fear
During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.
Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.
Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.
Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.
The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.
Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.
“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.
DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”
