Outgoing Premier Mario Monti said yesterday that he “cannot wait” to leave office, as efforts to give recession-hit Italy a new government following last month’s inconclusive elections appeared to be foundering.
Monti, who was installed in late 2011 as the head of a technocratic government, won international respect for stabilising his country’s debt crisis. But his star has waned since the elections, in which his centrist coalition ended up a poor fourth.
“This government cannot wait to be relieved of its task,” he told parliament.
Centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has been asked by President Giorgio Napolitano to try to form a new administration. But to succeed, Bersani needs to secure outside support in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, where he lacks a majority.
Echoing Monti’s remarks about the difficulty of leading Italy under current circumstances, Bersani joked that “only someone mentally insane could have an urge to be in government at this moment”.