Italy's populist coalition plans spark social media satire

Italy's populist coalition plans spark social media satire
By Lillo Montalto Monella  & Alasdair Sandford

Commentators have been having a field day over attempts by Italy's unlikely coalition hopefuls to draw up a plan for government.

Negotiations between Italy's two would-be coalition partners have been going on for days. 

Italy’s election in March left Matteo Salvini's nationalist League, and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) under Luigi Di Maio, in the driving seat to form a coalition. But with the two parties having little in common, beyond a distrust of traditional politics, the discussions have been challenging.

And when a draft manifesto was finally leaked to the Huffington Post both sides swiftly distanced themselves from its main points.

Indeed a subsequent draft bears few similarities with the one that caused tremors in Brussels.

Social media commentators in the meantime have been having a field day, with many ridiculing the political outsiders' collaboration and plans for government.

This spoof "draft programme" mocks the coalition hopefuls' plans for tax and decision-making, suggests that ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi will be pulling the strings, football trophies may be carved up, and ends with an order for pizza:

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"Colouring history": one interpretation of the would-be coalition's plansFacebook

While Five Star's Di Maio's programme is compared to a child's picture book (above), Italian President Sergio Mattarella is pictured (below) in imagined consultations with potential coalition partners.

Bat Gogh's tweet (above) says among the new political double act's demands are the cancellation of 250 billion of debt, exit from the euro and "a helicopter with a full tank. Only then will they release around 60 million hostages".

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