Far-right League party leader Matteo Salvini on Wednesday said he welcomed conservative Senate speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti 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," the statement added.
Italy's president Sergio Mattarella on Wednesday asked Casellati to hold exploratory talks on a coalition government with the parties of the centre-right alliance and Five Star and to tell him by Friday if she believes such a coalition can govern and agree on a prime minister.
Mattarella's move came after he held two rounds of talks this month with Italy's political leaders which failed to end the deadlock that resulted from the inconclusive 4 March election in which populist parties made strong gains.
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 and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative Forza Italia party (to which Casellati belongs) and Di Maio's 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 percent of votes in last month's election - its worst-ever result.
