Italy set for 'unpredictable' crisis as populist government crashes
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is due to speak at the Senate at 3 pm (1300 GMT), two weeks after his deputy Matteo Salvini unexpectedly said he wanted to bring down the government.
Conte is likely to defend his record and shoot back at Salvini, and then face a confidence vote or spontaneously tender his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella.
According to Barclays Bank analyst Fabio Fois, "the move will officially trigger one of the most unpredictable government crises in modern Italian history."
Salvini's original idea was to force early elections. As the leader of the poll-topping far-right League party, he could have expected to win the ballot and inherit the premiership.
Under Salvini, a fan of authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and a former euro-exit campaigner, Italy would veer further to the right and off the EU mainstream.
But after initiating the crisis and announcing a no-confidence motion in Conte, the League leader is back-pedalling, hinting he may be willing to patch things up with the Five Star Movement (M5S).
"What are we going to do today? We will first of all listen [to Conte]. We'll see after these 10 days, how much willingness there is to go on [with this government]," he tweeted.
But his estranged ally, the M5S, is adamant that the coalition is over and is considering forming an alternative government with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
"They [the League] have started an absurd government crisis just for fun, between a mojito and a DJ set," the M5S tweeted, alluding to beach club appearances by Salvini earlier this month.
It is unclear whether a M5S-PD alliance could work, given their historic enmities. It might also play into Salvini's hands by casting him as a victim of a back-room deal to shut him out of power.
"We are at a crossroads: we either bring up the insults [we exchanged in the past] or we put the interests of the country first," PD lawmaker Ettore Rosato told the Corriere della Sera daily about the M5S.
Backers of the M5S-PD option argue that it would be in the national interest to avoid snap elections so as not to derail important ongoing policymaking work.
In particular, Italy needs to to draft a 2020 budget to keep its huge public debt in check and avoid a sharp rise in VAT that will kick in automatically in January if no alternative measures are approved.
Once Conte resigns, Mattarella is expected to hold consultations with political party leaders to see if an alternative government can be formed or if early elections are the only solution to the crisis.
