The far-right League party will not join any coalition government with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), its leader Matteo Salvini said on Friday after an apparent overture to the PD by Salvini's centre-right political ally Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the conservative Forza Italia party .
''Berlusconi is wrong to say that we need to bring the PD into a government," Salvini said, referring to remarks made an interview on Friday by Berlusconi to La7 TV channel's 'L'Aria che tira' programme.
"He is not respecting the wishes of Italians and if this happens it will be without the League," Salvini said at a furniture fair in Milan.
"I want nothing to do with Matteo Renzi's PD," he said, referring to the party's outgoing leader, who resigned after the centre-left alliance came third in Italy's inconclusive 4 March national election. The PD won just 18 percent of votes in the ballot - its worst-ever result.
Talks led this month by Italy's president Sergio Mattarella and by Senate speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati have failed to break the post-election deadlock amid a mesh of seemingly irreconcilable demands by Italy's political leaders.
Luigi Di Maio, the leader of Italy's biggest parliamentary party, the Five-Star Movement, has continued to rule out governing with Berlusconi, whose party belongs to the centre-right bloc that has the most parliamentary seats.
Salvini has vetoed a tie-up with the PD, while Berlusconi has made clear he wanted nothing to do with Five-Star, in response to its own rejection of him due to his tax fraud conviction and current bribery trial.
Salvini has also refused to break with Berlusconi, which is a condition posed by Di Maio for Five-Star to enter a coalition government with the League.
The PD has so far vowed to go into opposition.
Mattarella is said to be taking this weekend to ponder a way forward out of the ongoing stalemate.
.jpg)
.jpg)
