Italy Crisis: Call To Impeach President After Candidate Vetoed

The leader of Italy’s biggest political party has called for the president to be impeached after he vetoed a choice for finance minister.

Luigi Di Maio of the populist Five Star Party said President Sergio Mattarella had caused an “institutional crisis”.

Efforts by PM-designate Giuseppe Conte to form a government collapsed on Sunday after Mr Mattarella rejected eurosceptic candidate Paolo Savona.

Five Star had been trying to form a government with the right-wing League.

Italy has been without a government since elections in March because no political group can form a majority.

Mr Conte has now stepped down and correspondents say President Mattarella has been in talks with former IMF economist Carlo Cottarelli, who is tipped as a potential stop-gap prime minister.

But the BBC’s James Reynolds in Rome says such an arrangement is unlikely to last and early elections may have to be called.

There is now a real argument between the president and the populists about Italy’s position in the EU, he adds.

Mr Di Maio called for impeachment under article 90 of the constitution, which allows parliament to demand a president step down based on a simple majority vote.

If the vote is in favour, the country’s constitutional court then decides whether to impeach or not.