Politics in Italy is already happening at such a speed that it is even possible to create a government crisis without that government having been formed. That is what has happened in recent days in the coalition led by the extreme right and which is called to manage Italy for the next five years (although the average life expectancy of an Italian Executive is one year and one month).
The confrontation between Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brother of Italy and the woman destined to become prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, a minority partner in the coalition, reached a point of maximum tension on Friday when she reminded him that “it is not extortionable”. . She was referring to the demands of ministries that Il Cavaliere had launched and, above all, to the insults that she had written down on a piece of paper and that the Senate cameras had managed to record: “Stubborn, arrogant, arrogant and offensive.
No willingness to change. You can’t agree with her.” What Berlusconi did not note about Meloni’s nature is that he will take time to forget the insult. For this reason, the owner of Mediaset had to go to the headquarters of the Brothers of Italy on Monday to smooth things over and bury the hatchet.
The government formation process should enter its final stretch this week. The calendar handled by the Quirinal Palace, seat of the Presidency of the Republic, indicates that Meloni should receive the commission from the head of state, Sergio Mattarella, over the weekend and, at the latest, next Monday or Tuesday he should be sworn in charge the new Executive with the new ministers. The problem is that the latest disagreements have put on the table the possibility that Forza Italia was not part of this government and limited itself to external support.
A situation that would greatly weaken Meloni and that would have made her start off on a very bad foot. On Monday, according to the same protagonists they assured in their social networks, the rancor gave way to a renewed union. Although it is not known until when.
The pulse between both leaders has been very strong in recent hours. The first round was clearly lost by Berlusconi, who left the Senate humiliated when he tried to sabotage the election of Ignazio La Russa, Meloni’s candidate, as president of the upper house. Brothers of Italy had reached an agreement under the sleeve with the opposition and obtained the necessary votes to leave Berlusconi portrayed.
However, Meloni also knows that he would have a very difficult time ruling without the support of Il Cavaliere and his Forza Italia. For this reason, Meloni, according to what was leaked on Monday night, offered the Foreign Ministry and the vice-presidency of the Council of Ministers to Antonio Tajani, Berlusconi’s right-hand man. The Ministry of Justice, however, will not go to Forza Italia, as the owner of Mediaset wanted. The other vice presidency would be for Matteo Salvini, leader of the League,
The surprise in this hyper-excited staging comes from the League side. Salvini is the only one who has understood the secondary role that the electoral result had reserved for him and, for the moment, he has accepted the vetoes imposed by Meloni (starting with his for the Interior). And, for now, he has been rewarded with the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, to whom the anti-abortionist and homophobe Lorenzo Fontana has been appointed. And that, Forza Italia sources explain, is one of the points that Berlusconi would have discussed with Meloni: the overrepresentation of Salvini’s party in the negotiation. One more point of friction that suggests that the future government will be born with too many problems.
