For the leader of the League, the Italian nationalist Matteo SalviniIt is always an election campaign. Even now, when the new Government of Giorgia Meloni of which he is vice president. Precisely for this reason, because he is the number two of an Executive who always dreamed for himself and who, three years ago, even touched his fingers. Il captain -as he is known among the ranks of his formation-, is one of the minority partners of the current prime minister; but at the same time her main rival. What is Salvini’s plan to eat Meloni’s land?
Getting ahead of the nationalist political narrative and pushing everything and more through social media. On the basis of nationalism, Salvini and Meloni are very similar, often too much: that is why the former is willing to put all the meat on the grill, at the level of propaganda, to eat up as much ground as possible from the current president of the Italian Government.
It is enough to observe, these days, the fruitful social networks of Matteo Salvini: immigration, parties ‘rave’, drugs. The leader of the League takes advantage of any topic and occasion to pronounce on the main issues of the country to promote his nationalist vision.
[El poder hace a Meloni ‘europeísta’ y ‘feminista’: “Basta ya de la anomalía italiana, gobernaré 5 años”]
Given that the political and programmatic line is very similar to that of the current prime minister and head of the Brothers of Italy (HDI); Salvini tries to play with an advantage since Meloni, moreover, is more focused on showing an institutional and reliable image of herself. As was seen this Thursday on her first international trip to Brussels to meet with the main community leaders: the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metzola; the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen and the President of the European Council, Charles Michael.
And Salvini? From innocuous Infrastructure portfolio has never ceased to be, at any time, the main internal adversary of its own coalition. After the electoral victory, Meloni decided not to grant Salvini the Ministry of the Interior, the most coveted position of the chief lawyer -which he already occupied between 2018 and 2019-; so as not to reward a partner too similar to her and that could overshadow her with such a politically juicy issue, in nationalist terms, such as immigration.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Vice President and Minister of Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini.
Reuters
Giorgia Meloni, therefore, when he formed his government two weeks ago, he placed Matteo Salvini as Minister of Infrastructure, a portfolio apparently intended for the promotion, among other things, of large public works, such as the bridge over the Strait of Messina, eternal project never started to connect the island of Sicily with the rest of Italy.
But Matteo Salvini, even from that ministry, will have a lot to say in anti-migration management because Infrastructures, in Italy, is the portfolio that manages the country’s ports. Staying with Infrastructures, the leader of the League will be able to prevent the humanitarian rescue NGOs that sail the Mediterranean from entering any Italian port.
The boats of Catania
The signing by Matteo Salvini of a decree by which only vulnerable immigrants will be allowed to disembark, while the rest must stay on board and then be expelled, opens the door to immigration control from his own portfolio. This Sunday, the ship ‘Geo Barents’, of the organization ‘Doctors without Borders’, which has 572 immigrants on boardhas docked in the port of Catania without knowing how many of them will be able to access Italy.
Another 35 migrants traveling on the ‘Humanity 1’, belonging to the NGO ‘SOS Humanity’, have not been able to land either. The captain has been asked to leave the port facilities, however he refuses. In addition to these two boats, there are two other boats in the vicinity of the city of Catania. This 2022, a total of 82,384 migrants compared to 53,189 in the same period of the previous year.
[El Gobierno de Meloni niega la entrada de los barcos de las ONG y deja varados a 1.000 migrantes]
But there is more. A few days ago, one of Salvini’s trusted men within the League, Edoardo Rixiwas appointed Vice Minister of Infrastructures: in other words, if Salvini wanted to spend less time than planned in his office within the ministry, he already has someone he trusts closely to Il captain can dedicate himself to his permanent electoral campaign and gradually wear down Meloni’s hegemony within the nationalist coalition.
As if that were not enough, the current Minister of the Interior, matthew piantedosi, was once Salvini’s own chief of staff when Salvini carried his current portfolio. Meloni appointed Piantedosi as Interior Minister within the quota of technocrats of the new Transalpine Executive, but in practice Salvini is applauding all the decisions of Piantedosi, due to the political closeness with him, as if they were his.
Salvini ‘manages’ Interior
Salvini is leading de facto not only the Ministry of Infrastructures, but also the Ministry of the Interior; in order to appropriate Meloni’s most identifying themes in terms of nationalism and radical right: immigration and security.
Salvini’s aforementioned strategy is not unprecedented for the nationalist leader. In the penultimate Italian general elections, in 2018, the head of the League obtained 17% of the votes, the best data of the formation until then, but throughout the first Executive of Giuseppe Conte (2018-2019), the result of the anomalous union between the anti-system 5 Star Movement (M5E) and the League; Il captain Salvini was progressively eating land to the crickets until reaching, in 2019, 34% in the polls.
The Italian Vice President and Minister of Infrastructures, Matteo Salvini.
Reuters
Said data, which the League achieved under the leadership of Salvini in August 2019, pushed him to leave the Conte Executive; thinking that it would provoke early elections, being able to translate his support in the polls into votes.
Since then, Salvini has suffered a gradual decline: a second Conte government (2019-2021) of a European nature and the technocrat’s National Unity Executive mario draghi; she has consolidated, over time, the loss of power of the populist Matteo Salvini and the rapid rise of Meloni, which has led her to become the new tenant of the Chigi Palace.
[La desgraciada historia de Linda, de 4 años: sus 26 horas en un bote de Túnez a Lampedusa sin su familia]
One lime and one sand
The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, you can breathe easy, but in the short term. This is due to the great electoral success obtained by his party as leader of the nationalist coalition, whose bloc has obtained an absolute majority in both Chambers of the Italian Parliament. medium termnevertheless, Meloni will have to manageat once, an uncomfortable internal rival and a demanding partner: thus, respectively, the nationalist League of Salvini and the pro-European Forza Italia (FI) of the former prime minister and tycoon Silvio Berlusconitoday captained in practice by the former president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, current Foreign Minister.
Building on the usual Italian political volatility, the current Meloni government has, in theory, the requirements to stay the five years that a legislature lasts in Italy. This is due, above all, to a solid absolute majority against a minority and divided opposition.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Reuters
But the main controversies that Meloni will have when leading his nationalist bloc, both in the Executive and in Parliament; They will focus on stopping, on the one hand, a Salvini who can turn his political survival into a ‘sorpasso’ in polls of the head of the Brothers of Italy (HDI) and, on the other, a Berlusconi who could be demanding of the time to protect a Europeanism, even if it is minimal, within Meloni’s nationalist action.
Salviniover time, could weaken Meloni if he were to overtake her in the polls; and Berlusconi and Tajani’s Forza Italia (FI) could become a long-term problem for the prime minister; because said party has already announced that it will leave the Executive if Europeanist values within the Government are not guaranteed.
[Meloni exhibe perfil moderado en su visita a Bruselas: “La voz de Italia en Europa será fuerte”]
Meloni’s first two weeks at the head of the Italian Government can be summed up like this: one of lime and another of sand. If, on the one hand, the prime minister maintains a moderate tone and makes her first international trip to Brussels as a sign of deference to the European Union; on the other, Meloni opens internally with a decree law to prohibit parties ‘rave’ and a refusal to allow the disembarkation of immigrants rescued by humanitarian NGOs in the Central Mediterranean.
If at an international level, the communicative axis is the predisposition to dialogue with the rest of the European partners; internally, Meloni bets on a strong handat least apparently, that she tries to convince those who have voted for her that the shift to the radical right is effective.
Meloni has a difficult task in terms of image: to be as pro-European as Berlusconi in order to remain moderate and credible in Europe; and more populist than Salvini to win the nationalist vote in his country. The achievement of applying a middle term, something unprecedented within a country that was the founder of the European Union, will be the key to the nationalist experiment of the first woman in charge of the Government in Italy.
