FLORENCE, ITALY – Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi may get a mandate to form a government Saturday night or Sunday morning in his bid to become Italy’s youngest premier, political sources said.
President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to give a government-formation mandate to the leader of Letta’s Democratic Party (PD), Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, who at 39 could become Italy’s youngest premier.
If he succeeds, he could be sworn in early next week as Italy’s third straight unelected premier after Mario Monti and Letta. Enrico Letta resigned Friday as Italian premier after 10 months at the helm of a weak, bickering left-right coalition government. Letta resigned Friday after the PD backed Renzi’s call for a new government to lift Italy out of a morass of stymied reforms and slow-moving efforts to combat record unemployment.
Renzi has said he wants the next government to last until the end of the parliamentary term in 2018, giving it time to enact a sweeping agenda to change a discredited and dysfunctional political system and deliver growth to lower record unemployment.