Italian President dissolves Parliament following Prime Minister Mario Draghi's resignation

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has signed a decree dissolving the country's parliament. This is stated in a statement on the website of the head of state.

Mattarella later stated that elections should be held within 70 days. The exact date will be determined by the government. Most likely, it will be the end of September, writes Reuters.

Update. Parliamentary elections in Italy will be held on 25 September.

“The time we are going through does not allow us to pause in the work of the government, which is necessary to counteract the economic and social crisis, rising inflation,” the president said.

The bloc of conservative parties, led by the far-right Brothers of Italy, could win a majority in the next election. This was reported by Reuters, citing data from opinion polls by YouTrend and Cattaneo Zanetto & Co. According to the study, the right-wing bloc could win up to 221 seats out of 400 in the lower house and 108 out of 200 in the upper house of parliament.

• Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned twice in seven days, on July 14 and 21. He explained his decision by a split in the ruling coalition. President Sergio Mattarella rejected the prime minister's first petition, and "took note" of the second. He asked Draghi to stay on as interim prime minister.
• A split in the largest party in the Italian parliament, the Five Star Movement, which is part of the ruling coalition, occurred in June. It is directly related to the issue of arms supplies to Ukraine. In particular, because of the refusal of the party to support the supply of weapons, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio left it.