Rome April 18 (IANS/AKI) Italy s President Sergio Mattarella on Wednesday gave Senate Speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati until Friday to see if the centre-right alliance and the populist Five-Star Movement can muster the numbers in parliament to govern after last month s inconclusive national election his office said.
Besides checking if a centre-right-Five-Star coalition government can command a parliamentary majority Casellati is to establish whether "a mutually agreed nomination" exists for the job of Prime Minister said Ugo Zampetti Secretary-General of the Italian presidency reading from a statement.
"I have thanked President Mattarella for the trust he has placed in me and will keep him constantly updated " said Casellati who is a member of the conservative Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.
"I undertake this task with the same spirit of public service that I have shown in past weeks as Senate speaker " she said.
Casellati said she would hold the exploratory meetings with the centre-right parties and with Five-Star "in a very short space of time".
Two rounds of talks between Mattarella and party leaders this month failed to end the political stalemate after the split vote in Italy s March 4 poll produced a hung parliament in which populists made strong gains.
Five-Star is the largest parliamentary party after winning almost one-third of votes while the centre-right alliance is the biggest parliamentary force. The far-right League now leads the centre-right after the party quadrupled its share of votes while the centre-left Democratic Party has vowed to go into opposition after scoring its worst-ever result (18.72 percent).
Both Five-Star as the largest parliamentary party and the League as leader of the centre-right alliance - which has the most parliamentary seats - have claimed first bid to try and form a government.
But the main stumbling block in the talks has been Five-Star leader Luigi Di Maio s refusal to govern with convicted fraudster Berlusconi s party and his insistence that Five-Star should lead any government.
The centre-left Democratic Party has the parliamentary numbers to play kingmaker in the formation of a coalition government but has so far vowed to go into opposition after getting just 18 per cent of votes in last month s election - its worst-ever result.
League party leader Matteo Salvini on Wednesday said he welcomed Casellati s exploratory mandate on forming a government between the centre-right alliance and the populist Five-Star Movement.
"The mandate given to The Right Honourable Casellati is good news because a government containing the centre-right and Five-Star is exactly what the Italian people decided " Salvini said in a statement.
"The League is ready to govern today - we just need the other parties to stop squabbling."
--IANS/AKI
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