Jan 19,2021:Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has won a crucial confidence vote in Parliament’s lower house, hanging on to power after a junior partner quit his coalition and sparked a political crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Conte lost his coalition majority last week with the defection of cabinet ministers belonging to former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s small but key Italia Viva party, a decision that followed weeks of criticism of the government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following an appeal to opposition and non-aligned lawmakers for “clear backing”, Conte’s government won on Monday the lower-house vote by 321 to 259, a wider-than-expected margin that gave it an absolute majority in the 629-seat chamber.
Conte will face a tougher test on Tuesday in the upper house Senate, where the government had only a slim majority even when Italia Viva was still part of the coalition.
