The chief executive of Italian retailer Conad, Francesco Pugliese, has told ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine that he hopes that the country will be able to form a government “in a hurry”, following Sunday’s general election results.
While the Five-Star Movement (M5S) emerged as the party with the highest number of seats, the election result has left an impasse in which there are now three distinct blocs: centre-right, centre-left and the M5S, with none of these earning enough to form a majority government.
Analysts are pointing to a number of scenarios, including the formation of a populist partnership between the M5S and the right-wing Lega party, or the M5S and the centre-left Democratic Party, but discussions could take days, if not weeks.
Quick Answer
“We cannot wait,” Pugliese said of the election results. “As a country, we need to provide a quick answer, one way or the other.
“The point is that now we have two Italys, and two suffering Italys. The south is suffering from an economic viewpoint, and the north is suffering because of security issues. […] We have some positive signals in the economy, but they are very weak, and they may very rapidly turn into negative ones.
“So, we need to see some maturity by decision-makers, and we need to clearly understand what the majority is going to be in the parliament,” Pugliese added.
Upcoming Edition
ESM was speaking to Pugliese for the forthcoming edition of the magazine, which is due to be published in mid-March.
Pugliese added that he felt that the new electoral system in Italy, which is similar to the first-past-the-post system used in the UK, is “absurd”, noting, “Machiavelli could have done better.”
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
