By AFP
In Summary
- Markets seemed to take Renzi's departure in their stride. Stocks and the euro fell in early trading in Asia but there were no signs of panic with the possibility of his resignation having already been largely factored in.
- Renzi said he would be visiting President Sergio Mattarella on Monday to hand in his resignation following a final meeting of his Cabinet.
- Mattarella will then be charged with brokering the appointment of a new government or, if he can't do that, ordering early elections.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has announced his
resignation, hours after it was confirmed he had suffered a crushing
defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform.
"My experience of government finishes here,"
Renzi told a press conference on Monday, acknowledging that the "No"
campaign had won an "extraordinarily clear" victory in a vote on which
he had staked his future.
Interior Ministry projections suggested the
"No" camp, led by the populist Five Star Movement, had carried the vote
by a margin of almost 60-40 with a near 70 percent turnout underlining
the high stakes and the intensity of the debate.
Stocks, euro fell
Markets seemed to take Renzi's departure in
their stride. Stocks and the euro fell in early trading in Asia but
there were no signs of panic with the possibility of his resignation
having already been largely factored in.
Renzi said he would be visiting President
Sergio Mattarella on Monday to hand in his resignation following a final
meeting of his Cabinet.
Mattarella will then be charged with brokering
the appointment of a new government or, if he can't do that, ordering
early elections.
Five Star founder and leader Beppe Grillo called for an election
to be called "within a week" on the basis of a recently adopted
electoral law, which is designed to ensure the leading party has a
parliamentary majority - a position Five Star could well find themselves
in at the next election.
"Democracy was the winner," Grillo wrote in a
post-vote blog that marked a significant change in the party's position
on the electoral law. Prior to the referendum, Five Star had been
arguing for it to be revised.
Most analysts see early elections as unlikely
with the most probable scenario involving Renzi's administration being
replaced by a caretaker one dominated by his Democratic Party, which
will carry on until an election due to take place by the spring of 2018.
Media banned
Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan is the
favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister and the outgoing leader may
stay on as head of his party - which would leave him well-placed for a
potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election, whenever
it is.
On the day Austria's voters rejected a far-right candidate for
president, the scale of the "No" victory in Italy was even bigger than
opinion polls had been indicating up until November 18, after which the
media were banned from publishing survey results.
Renzi had gone into the final weekend of the
campaign insisting he could still win voters around but he acknowledged
he had failed.
"The Italian people spoke today in unequivocal fashion," he said.
Overdue change
Opposition parties had denounced the proposed
amendments to the 68-year-old Constitution as dangerous for democracy
because they would have removed important checks and balances on
executive power.
Spearheaded by Five Star, the biggest rival to
Renzi's Democratic party, the "No" campaign also capitalised on Renzi's
declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by
tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy from Africa.
Renzi's backers believed they were voting for overdue change.
Outside a polling station in Rome, business owner Raffaele
Pasquini, 37, told AFP he had voted "Yes" in the interest of his
two-year-old son.
"We are voting to try and change a country that has been stalled for far too long," he said.
After the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's
victory in the US presidential election, the No vote is likely to be
interpreted as another victory for populist forces and a potential
stepping stone to government for Grillo's Five Star.
Popular discontent
But the campaign was not just about popular
discontent with the state of Italy. Many Italians of a similar political
bent to Renzi had deep reservations about the proposed changes to the
constitution.
Under the proposals, the second-chamber
Senate, currently a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime
lawmakers, would have been reduced to only 100 members, mostly nominated
by the regions.
The chamber would also have been stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.
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