The outcome of Sunday’s vote, widely seen as a referendum on Renzi’s government, suggests that the prime minister and his party have lost voters to the anti-establishment 5Star Movement as well as minor parties on both the Right and Left.
Renzi’s opponents won 60 percent of the vote and 17 out of Italy’s 20 regions. High voter turnout of more than 68.5 percent made it an even more conclusive defeat for the former mayor of Florence.
Renzi may be paying the price for an original sin: hijacking the PD as an outsider. Several party elders, who openly campaigned against Renzi, are now demanding his resignation as head of the PD, accusing him of having fomented divisions. [...]
Renzi loyalists have argued that if he also resigns as chairman, the party will be left “with a bunch of barons fighting each other – and no king.” They also argue that, despite the defeat, nearly 13 million Italians voted in favor of Renzi’s reforms and that such support should not be underestimated — or wasted.
“One of the mistakes of the Remainers of the Brexit campaign is that they did not capitalize on the over 40 percent of votes they got,” said Lia Quartapelle, chair of the PD’s foreign affairs committee. “We intend to do differently.”
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