All good things must come to an end, the saying goes. And so it was with the country’s 67th post-war government, led by the Eurocrat Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank. Draghi, who tendered his resignation to the country’s president Thursday morning—for the second time in a week—will now officially step down. Draghi replaced prime minister Giuseppe Conte of the Five-Star Movement, who led the country through the depths of the pandemic, but who lost support of parliament once the worst of the crisis ended in February 2021. Draghi then led a fitful coalition forward as the country worked to fight corruption as it invested European funds doled out to help recover from the pandemic. But it would ultimately be Conte who was instrumental in pulling the plug on his successor’s reign when he pulled support and fractured the once-mighty Five Star Movement. Draghi will now stay on as a caretaker prime minister until snap elections can be held, likely in October.
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