FLORENCE, ITALY – The mayor of Florence launched a bid on Thursday to be Italy’s next prime minister, a challenge to the old generation struggling with political chaos less than eight months ahead of an election.
Matteo Renzi, 37, seen as an arrogant upstart by the ageing political establishment, announced he would stand in primary elections to choose the prime ministerial candidate for the centre left, which is well ahead in the polls.
Renzi says he wants to “trash” the old political class and that Italy must turn to a new generation after years of misgovernment.
Renzi, who launched his candidacy at a rally in the northern city of Verona, aims to ride the same wave of disgust with traditional politicians that has helped comedian Beppe Grillo establish his populist Five Star Movement as a political force.
Pier Luigi Bersani, veteran head of Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD), looks certain to win the primaries, expected in November, even if a recent opinion poll showed 37 percent of the general public would prefer Renzi as centre-left premier against 27 percent for Bersani, who is 60 years old.
Renzi’s candidacy underlines the forces pushing traditional parties towards disintegration as an election approaches to choose a successor to Mario Monti’s unelected technocrat government that is trying to steer Italy through the euro zone debt crisis.
European leaders and investors are worried by the uncertainty and fear a new government could renege on Monti’s austerity policies that have done much to restore Italy’s international reputation since the fall of scandal-plagued billionaire Silvio Berlusconi last November.
The head of the employer’s lobby Confindustria, Giorgio Squinzi, said he hoped the poll – which must be held by April – would not add to Italy’s problems. “Next year’s elections are a question mark,” he said. (Reuters)
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