Italy’s Draghi urged to fix crisis as resignation refused

Italy's teetering government was thrown a lifeline Thursday after the country's president refused to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, insisting he address parliament in a bid to avoid snap elections.

Draghi had earlier vowed to resign after a party in his coalition government -- the Five Star Movement -- sat out a confidence vote, sending tremors through the eurozone's third largest economy.

Draghi said the "pact of trust" on which the government was based had been broken, and the conditions to carry on were "no longer there".

He said he had made "every effort" to "meet the demands that have been put to me", but the vote showed "this effort was not enough".

President Sergio Mattarella, a figurehead who takes on a key role in moments of political crisis, asked Draghi not to throw in the towel but instead "assess" the situation in parliament.

He was expected to do address both the lower and upper houses on Wednesday.

"We now have five days to make sure parliament votes its confidence in the Draghi government," Enrico Letta, head of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said on Twitter.

The crisis comes as Italy battles raging inflation and races to push through key reforms required by the European Union in exchange for post-pandemic funds.
The Five Star Movement (M5S), headed by former premier Giuseppe Conte, has been haemorrhaging parliamentarians and support in the polls over policy U-turns and internal divisions.

It sat out Thursday's confidence vote in a move described by experts as a tactical attempt to win back grassroots backing ahead of the scheduled 2023 general election.

The government survived the vote, but Draghi had previously warned on multiple occasions he would...