Italy tensions rise as Renzi cries foul over vote

Italy’s centre-left alliance showed new signs of division yesterday after the chief rival to Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani denounced the party hierarchy as efforts to form a government enter a critical phase.

Every day we wait is a day wasted for Italy

The deadlock has left the euro zone’s third largest economy with only a caretaker government in charge as it slides further into a recession that many analysts expect will last until at least next year.

Matteo Renzi, the 38-year-old mayor of Florence who challenged Bersani unsuccessfully in a party primary last year, has voiced increasingly open dissent as the long stalemate since February’s inconclusive election has dragged on.

He has so far not attacked Bersani by name but has called for an end to the impasse since the vote, saying the centre left must either drop objections to dealing with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right bloc or accept the need for new elections.

“Personally I’m one of those who hopes we vote as soon as possible because the elections did not produce a majority,” he said. “Every day we wait is a day wasted for Italy.”

In a sign of the mounting friction in the centre left, he accused unnamed Democratic Party officials of treacherously working to undermine him behind the scenes.

“I’m only sorry about the duplicity of people who talk in one way and act in another. I’d only say to these two-faced people: maybe I won’t succeed in changing politics but politics won’t change me,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Behind the backbiting is a potentially serious breach within the centre left, which has struggled to contain its divisions since Bersani failed to secure a viable majority in parliament despite a strong opinion poll lead before the vote.

More than 40 days after the election on February 25, the divided political parties are still no closer to reaching an agreement which would allow a new government to be formed.

Boosted by opinion polls that suggest the Democratic Party (PD) could win 32.5 per cent of the vote with him at its head compared with 28.2 per cent under Bersani.