Forza Italia party leader and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) speaks to the media after the consultations with Italian President Sergio Mattarella (not seen in the picture) at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, capital of Italy, on April 5, 2018. The first round of formal government talks since an inconclusive March 4 general election kicked off in Rome's Quirinal Palace on Wednesday.(Xinhua/Jin Yu)
ROME, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The first round of formal government talks since an inconclusive March 4 general election kicked off in Rome's Quirinal Palace on Wednesday, but the real game was being played outside the palace walls as the leaders of Italy's main parties engaged in mutual thrust and parry in a flurry of interviews, statements, and blog posts.
The election delivered two relative winners: a center-right bloc led by the rightwing, anti-immigrant League, which also includes ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's moderate Forza Italia party; and the populist, euroskeptic Five Star Movement.
The third player is the center-left Democratic Party of outgoing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, which went into the opposition after a dismal electoral showing.
Neither the center-right bloc nor the Five Stars won enough seats in parliament to form a government on their own. While both their leaders - Matteo Salvini of the League and Luigi Di Maio of the Five Stars - claim the right to be the next prime minister of Italy, the two have been courting each another since the election.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Di Maio wrote that he wants to meet with Salvini as well as the Democratic Party "as soon as possible" -- as long as Salvini gets rid of his ally Berlusconi, and the Democrats get rid of former premier and party secretary, Matteo Renzi.
In response, Democratic Party bigwig Lorenzo Guerini in an interview on the party website accused Di Maio of "using the alleged dialogue with (our party) solely...to drum up the price of negotiations with the League".
On Porta a Porta (Door to Door) talk show on RAI public broadcaster, League House whip Giancarlo Giorgetti warned Di Maio that "placing vetoes... will only take us back to the vote" -- meaning that the Five Stars must accept that the League is in a coalition with Berlusconi's party, and living in denial of this fact will only hasten a return to the voting booth.
He was echoed by Berlusconi's party, which in a statement "strongly reiterated the unity of the center-right coalition and its unwillingness to engage in any form of dialogue or hypothetical government line-up with those that place unacceptable vetoes".
President Sergio Mattarella, who has the power to appoint a prime minister but also to call new elections if need be, met on Wednesday with the newly elected speakers of both houses of parliament and with delegations from Italy's smaller parties, ranging from the far left to the far right.
But the tough part of his job comes when he meets with the big players on Thursday: Berlusconi, Di Maio, Salvini, and interim Democratic Party secretary, Maurizio Martina.
It remains to be seen whether Mattarella can broker an agreement between some combination of these forces, in order to give Italy a stable government.
