ROME (AP) – Former Italian Premier Matteo Renzi resigned on Sunday as leader of his fractious Democratic Party in a bid to win a fresh, stronger mandate before parliamentary elections which populist political forces hope will propel them into national power for the first time.
As promised a week earlier, Renzi told fellow Democratic leaders he was resigning in view of an eventual party congress to decide electoral platforms and the next leader. No one immediately challenged him for a new mandate as party secretary.
But Renzi insisted he wouldn’t submit to a more left-leaning faction threatening schism if he again sought the top party post.
The only word uglier than schism, he said in a speech at an assembly at a Rome hotel, “is blackmail, a diktat from the minority.”
Some in the faction had openly defied Renzi by urging voters to reject a government-sponsored referendum on constitutional reforms, aimed at making Italy more governable. The referendum went down to defeat on Dec. 4, prompting Renzi’s resignation as premier after nearly three years in the post.