Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta resigns

(Vatican Radio) Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta resigned Friday afternoon after his Democratic Party ousted him in an internal no-confidence vote. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to ask Democratic Party leader, Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, to try and form a new government.

“A Renzi prime minister-ship means a big change in style and it will mean an acceleration of the processes which were already begun, like electoral reform, like job creation, and above all like constitutional reform, said James Walston, Professor of Italian politics at the American University of Rome.

Walston told Vatican Radio Renzi will seek to build a wider coalition than the Letta government, but that carries risks.

“The wider it gets the weaker it gets, so Renzi does not want to go too far,” Walston said. “He has had words of support both from the left and from the right. He is a man of the centre. Although he belongs to a centre-left party, his own policies are centrist.”

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