Section:GDN 1N PaGe:29 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 20:47 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •
Amazon 29
Xikrin people take
on illegal loggers
Page 31Drone warfare
The stealth arms race
that is gathering pace
Page 35Salvini’s hopes of snap election
dashed as rivals agree to govern
Angela Giuff rida
RomeItaly’s anti-establishment Five Star
Movement (M5S) and the centre-left
Democratic party (PD) agreed last
night to try to form a new government
in a move that could avert snap elec-
tions and push the far-right League
into opposition.
Italy plunged into chaos this month
after Matteo Salvini withdrew his
League party from its fractious alli-
ance with M5S as he sought to bring
about snap elections.
The move had threatened to create
western Europe’s fi rst fully far-right
government. But Salvini, whose tac-
tics have dented his popularity in
recent weeks, had n ot foreseen that
M5S might team up with the PD. The
pair are longstanding enemies but also
the two largest parties in parliament.
Nor had Salvini expected Giuseppe
Conte, the outgoing prime ministerwho ended the M5S-League alliance
last week, to emerge as his rival. Talks
between the PD and M5S only pro-
gressed after Nicola Zingaretti, the PD
leader, succumbed to demands from
his M5S counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, to
reinstate Conte.
“There is a political agreement
with the PD allowing Conte to receive
the mandate to form a long-term
government,” Di Maio said after
meeting with the president, Sergio
Mattarella, last night.
Di Maio said that Salvini had tried
to patch things up and restore their
government, off ering him the role of
prime minister in return. “I refused,”
he said. “I’m interested in what is best
for the country, not what is best for me.
I don’t deny the work done over the
past 14 months, and the recognition
of Conte by [Donald] Trump is a sign
that we are on the right path.”
The US president endorsed Conte
in a tweet, saying he was “a highly
respected prime minister ”.Mattarella met leaders of Italy’s
main parties yesterday to explore the
possibility of an alternative majority.
He could announce that he is charging
Conte with the task by today. Matta-
rella said last week that unless the
parties could come up with a convinc-
ing pact, he would call snap elections.
An embittered Salvini made a fi nal
push for snap elections as he lambasted
the potential tie-up between his for-
mer ally and the PD.
“Mattarella has asked for a gov-
ernment with long-term prospects... can anyone seriously tell me that
a government between M5S and the
Democratic party is a long-term pros-
pect? It will be a long agony,” he said
after meeting the president.
Salvini said those who feared elec-
tions might escape a ballot for “three
or six months” but in the end they
would have to face a League that was
ready to give Italy a “strong and coher-
ent” government. “Whichever way the
popular judg ment goes, we will face it
head -on while some will have to equip
themselves with masks ,” he said.
Zingaretti said after his own meet-
ing with Mattarella that the PD was
ready to try to form a government with
M5S, but that it needed to be a “turn-
ing point” administration that broke
with the past.
Discussions between the two par-
ties have been fraught, partly because
of clashes over Conte as well as over
who should lead the various minis-
tries. The two sides still need to iron
out a programme and decide on a cab-
inet. There is also a risk that the deal
could fall through after M5S said it
would ask members to vote on any
agreement with the PD. It is unclear
how the votes are counted but many
M5S activists are against the alliance.
Mattarella has summoned Conte to
a meeting today.A time to celebrate Orthodox Christians mark Mariamoba, or the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, in a cathedral in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, yesterday. The majority of
the country’s population is Orthodox Christian and the day is a holiday, marked by a feast
after a fortnight during which Georgians cannot eat meat, fi sh, eggs or dairy products.PHOTOGRAPH:
VANO SHLAMOV/AFPArson attack on
bar in Mexico
leaves at least
26 dead and
11 injured
Jo Tuckman
Mexico CityAt least 26 people have been killed
and 11 others seriously injured in an
arson attack on a Mexican bar , which
has highlighted the failure of the coun-
try’s new president to quickly bring
down record levels of violence.
A n armed gang stormed the Caballo
Blanco, or White Horse, nightclub in
the Mexican city of Coatzacoalcos at
around 10pm on Tuesday night. They
sealed the emergency exits before
setting fi re to the entrance hall and
making their escape, apparently taking
the establishment’s owner with them.
The attack is the worst single act
of violence since President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador took offi ce in
December with the promise that his
term would bring a new era of peace.
Though he has put more emphasis
on crime prevention and creating eco-
nomic opportunities , López Obrador
has done little to change the basic out-
line of the failed anti-cartel strategy
he inherited from his predecessors,
rooted in reliance on operations by the
army and navy.
The president described the attack
in Coatzacoalcos, a gritty Gulf Coast
city focused on the oil industry, as
“very, very sad”. He promised a rig-
orous investigation would “get to the
bottom” of the case that, he under-
lined, had two angles.
“One is that it is regrettable that
organised crime acts in this way. It
is the most inhuman thing possible”
he said. “The other, which should
also be condemned, is the collusion
of the authorities. If we don’t at least
separate off the authorities from the
criminals we will not get anywhere.”
The president said there was evi-
dence that the attackers included an
alleged local cartel operator, Ricardo
‘N ’, alias La Loca, who had recently
been captured but then released.
Though the president suggested
this release was due to local level cor-
ruption, the state attorney general’s
offi ce hit back with a communiqu e
insisting La Loca had been the respon-
sibility of the federal authorities.
T he governor of the state of Verac-
ruz, where Coatzacoalcos is located,
said early evidence suggested the
attack was motivated by eff orts to
sell drugs at the bar. “Coatzacoalcos
today has a situation in which diff er-
ent groups want to sell their drugs in
these kinds of places and fi ght between
each other,” the governor, Cuitláhuac
García, told Radio Fórmula. “But this
time it looks like one group was pres-
suring the bar because the owner was
kidnapped.”‘A g o v e r n m e n t
betwen M5S and the
Democratic party
will be a long agony’Matteo Salvini
Leader of the LeagueRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws