“Right now, it seems more likely that we will have elections in 2018,” the minister said. Renzi’s supporters are convinced he would win a leadership congress or primaries.
“Our own polls show that Renzi can beat anyone who might stand against him,” the minister said.
Main opposition parties, including the 5-Star Movement which polls within a whisker of the PD, want an early vote.
A notable exception is former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, which trails the anti-immigrant Northern League on Italy’s fractured right wing. Berlusconi told La Repubblica newspaper on Sunday “taking the country to the ballot boxes in these conditions would be irresponsible”.
Polls show no party would win an outright majority under the current proportional system, probably dooming Italy to another of the unwieldy coalitions long blamed for instability.
PD veterans including former prime minister Massimo D’Alema warn against toppling current Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, widely seen as Renzi’s proxy, without first changing the law.
Underlining how much a popular vote against his proposed constitutional reform has weakened Renzi’s position, 40 PD senators issued an appeal last week to keep Gentiloni in place.
Only 32 percent of PD voters want elections to be held in June, while 58 percent would want to wait until the end of the legislature in 2018, according to a Winpoll survey for the Huffington Post published on Sunday.
Speranza, who has been a thorn in Renzi’s side since he resigned as floor leader in 2015, told La Repubblica: “We need to work to build an alternative point of view to Renzi.”
