Italy’s League (Lega) party is threatening to bring down the government over a corruption scandal involving one of its senior politicians, a coalition partner, the 5-Star Movement has stated.
The 5-Star movement’s chief, Luigi Di Maio noted on Facebook that his group had blocked Siri from taking "controversial" measures in the past and asked the League to deal with the issue in a responsible manner.
"Even today Lega threatens to bring down the government… Italy is not a game; Italy is us and millions of families in difficulty who want a signal. Italy is not a trophy, and I find it very serious that Lega, every time that it is disturbed, threatens to bring down the government with much shallowness", Di Maio said on Facebook.
The deputy prime minister further questioned the motives of his coalition partners.
"But then for what? For the sake of not taking out of the game their undersecretary who is investigated for corruption (who would be able to re-enter then the government in case if the question, as I hope, is resolved positively), are they ready to destroy everything and come back to [former Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi? Is this the value they give to Italy?" Di Maio said.
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M5S has called for Siri to step down, but Salvini fired back saying that his party had never demanded that M5S politicians resign over investigations.
In last March’s general election, Lega won over 17 percent of the vote and was able to form a coalition government with the 5-Star movement (M5S), who gained almost 33 percent of the vote. Lega's chief Matteo Salvini later became deputy prime minister and interior minister.