ROME — The biggest force in Italy’s parliament swung its weight behind Premier-designate Mario Draghi, assuring him broad cross-party support as he prepares to form a government.
Members of the Five Star Movement, which has anti-establishment roots and long denounced bankers and technocrats, voted online by 59% in favor of backing the former head of the European Central Bank. They were asked whether they wanted the movement to support a Draghi-led government that would place strong emphasis on green policies.
Draghi has already forged a parliamentary majority after two rounds of talks with political leaders, and is expected to report back to President Sergio Mattarella with his Cabinet picks as early as this week. Backers include the center-left Democratic Party and the anti-migrant League of Matteo Salvini.
Draghi has prioritized countering the pandemic that’s claimed more than 90,000 lives in Italy, a vaccination campaign, reviving the economy — with the country’s 209 billion euro ($254 billion) share of the European Union’s recovery package — and a common euro-area budget in his talks with party leaders.
Numerically, Draghi does not need Five Star. But the party’s support will allow him to muster wide consensus across the political spectrum, as Five Star leaders have managed to swing party members behind him despite internal divisions.
Party chiefs including Five Star’s co-founder Beppe Grillo, a former comic, urged the group to support Draghi saying they had won the premier-designate’s agreement to create a new ministry for ecological transition, which will merge environmental and economic development issues.
