Sharjah24 – Reuters: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte won a crucial confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies on Monday, hanging on to power after a junior partner quit his coalition and opened a political crisis amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Had he lost the vote, Conte would have been forced to resign.

After his appeal to opposition and non-aligned lawmakers to back him following last week's walk-out by former premier Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva party, Conte's government won the lower-house vote by 321 to 259.

The margin was wider than expected and gave the government an absolute majority in the 629-seat chamber.

Conte will face a tougher test on Tuesday in the upper house Senate, where the government had only a slim majority even when Italia Viva was still part of the coalition.

Looking to entice centrist and liberal lawmakers, Conte promised to revamp his policy agenda and shake up his cabinet, saying he wanted to modernise Italy and speed up implementation of a recovery plan for the recession-stricken economy.

Italy's borrowing costs rose on Monday as financial markets fretted over the political crisis, but a large-scale sell-off has been averted by the European Central Bank's large-scale purchases of Italian assets.