They have not even formed a government, but the fracture within the right-wing coalition that won the Italian elections already threatens the birth of the next Italian executive. Right now the tension between Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi, of Forza Italia, is capitalized. The hours go by and the parties are sending important mediators such as Antonio Tajani, number two of the former prime minister, to try to calm things down and redirect the situation.
The disagreement over the team that the next Italian executive should form has exploded in the election of the presidents of the Chambers, which were divided between the Brothers of Italy and the League without counting on Berlusconi’s party. Ignazio La Russa, Meloni’s right-hand man, and an heir to post-fascism, presides over the Senate; Lorenzo Fontana, a Catholic ultra-conservative loyal to Matteo Salvini, the Chamber of Deputies. The veteran tycoon is furious. First, because he has not had a say in these decisions. Second, because Meloni does not want, among other things, that his pupil Licia Ronzulli obtain a ministry. Third, because he longs for the Justice portfolio to go to Forza Italia, and they do not accept it.
The bomb was a photograph from La Repubblica that showed some notes by Berlusconi in the Senate, in very clear handwriting. In them, he defined Meloni’s behavior as “stubborn”, “arrogant”, “arrogant” and “offensive”. It is hard to believe that he was careless, being someone with as much experience in the Italian political imbroglio as Silvio Berlusconi.
“She was missing only one point: that I do not accept blackmail,” the ultra-rightist responded, visibly upset, to the microphones of Italian television before getting into a car and slamming the door. Although relations between the two have never been excellent –Berlusconi will never stop seeing her as Gianfranco Fini’s young protégé– this public rage is new. If, in the consultations with the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, Forza Italia goes separately to the rest of the coalition, the crack will be even more evident. They should start predictably this week.
The underlying problem is that Berlusconi, three times prime minister, has not yet fully digested that at 86 he no longer has the influence of yesteryear in Italian politics. He expected to be the shadow director of the next executive. For the new generation of far-rightists, especially for Meloni, the time when the founder of Mediaset gave the orders is over. The president of the Brothers of Italy wants to make it clear that now the one who leads the right-wing bloc and the only possible candidate for prime minister is her, whether she likes it or not. It is something that Salvini had already understood with his dismal electoral results, and that is why he skillfully negotiated to place Lorenzo Fontana, from the toughest wing of the League, as president of the Lower House.
The coup by Berlusconi, who also gave orders not to vote for La Russa as president of the Upper House, is harsh, while Meloni tries to define the list of ministers to present to Mattarella once he receives the task of forming a government. Italian journalists point to some names as safe. Starting with the leaguer Giancarlo Giorgetti, current Minister of Economic Development of Mario Draghi, as Minister of Economy. Matteo Salvini, who wanted to return to the Interior to close the ports to migrants, approaches the Infrastructure portfolio. Tajani, former president of the European Parliament, could be the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Forza Italia’s biggest card in the executive. Another liguista, Roberto Calderoli, would go to Regional Affairs, to guarantee the League’s push towards the autonomist issue. Adolfo Urso, of Brothers of Italy, who was president of the parliamentary committee that controls the secret services, would end up in Defense. Everything, if the pact does not end up blowing up.
