the challenge of a stable coalition

The paradox is that the Brothers of Italy (HDI, 26% of the vote), which has never governed the country, will have to rely not only on the League (9% of the vote) of Matteo Salvini, who was already Vice President of the Government (2018-2019), but also with Forza Italia (FI, 8% of the votes) of Silvio Berlusconi, who has been President of the Transalpine Executive (1994, 2001 and 2008). If, on the one hand, governing will be easier with an absolute majority, one of Giorgia Meloni’s first and most complicated tasks will be to impose her own balance so that the majority of the Government is solid and lasts the five years of the legislature. Because, otherwise, Salvini and Berlusconi could launch small political trips to hinder Meloni’s leadership.

As far as the League is concerned, Meloni will have to guarantee Salvini, somehow, the Ministry of the Interior; portfolio to which the leguista leader has always aspired to carry out his anti-immigration project and since he had to leave him after the fall of the first Conte government (2018-2019). At Salvini’s first press conference on Monday, the captain congratulated the winner: “Congratulations to Giorgia, she has been very good and we will work together, for a long time and well”, said the head of the League confirming all his support for Meloni .

The EU does not congratulate Meloni while the European extreme right is chested by the Fratelli d’Italia

Salvini has confessed that he went to bed “angry” after the votes due to the poor result of his party, which has gone from 17% to 9% in four years, when in between, in 2019, he managed to achieve 34% in the polls. But, in the same sentence, the legista chief assured that, the day after the election night, he got up again “full of energy” at the service of his coalition. And he added: “The vote is sacred. Starting tomorrow, we will move on to the facts”.

The Meloni-Salvini union will have, from the outset, many points of union. They have very similar visions in the field of migration, family policies and in views contrary to globalization.

Berlusconi’s difficulty

But for Meloni it will be more complicated having to manage the figure and influence of Silvio Berlusconi, billionaire tycoon and former prime minister of the country, winner of three general elections. This difficulty, for Meloni, of relating comfortably with Berlusconi; lies in the fact that Berlusconi is the founder of the centre-right coalition: in 1994 she led this coalition for the first time, precisely with the League of Umberto Bossi and the National Alliance of Gianfranco Fini, a formation in which Meloni was a member and which she refounded herself in 2012 to create the Brothers of Italy (HDI), today the first party of the country.

But Meloni, in reality, is much more interested in having Berlusconi under control than Salvini, because with the latter the affinity is very high than with the former. The Cavaliere, however, has a lot of experience in the European and international arena after his almost ten total effective years in office as prime minister, being the only one in the history of republican Italy who has managed to govern for an entire legislature, between 2001 and 2006.

Forza Italia (FI), although its electoral weight is much less than that of the Brothers of Italy (HDI), after the general elections this Sunday Berlusconi, who has always presumed to belong to the moderate family of the European People’s Party (EPP) ; it could weigh 8% of it as a pro-European guarantee within the next government; with the aim of avoiding any excess of challenging pitches against Brussels in Italy. Berlusconi has already confirmed, in the electoral campaign, that he is not going to allow it; and that if that anti-Europeanism increased, he would be willing to abandon a nationalist Executive.

Return to public life

“We are going to be decisive”, is the message from the ranks of Forza Italia (FI) after the general elections. One of the key pieces that will surely be a minister is Antonio Tajani, former president of the European Parliament (2017-2019) and, above all, Berlusconi’s faithful dolphin within Forza Italia (FI).

The victory of Giorgia Meloni strengthens the hard right of Poland and Hungary in the EU

One of the great and surprising political novelties of these Italian general elections is the return of Silvio Berlusconi to the Italian Parliament. After years of legal scandals, his well-known bunga bunga parties and several years of political disqualification; the Milanese billionaire, at 86, will return to the front line of public life transalpina entering as a new member of the Italian Senate.

In recent weeks, Berlusconi has repeatedly actively and passively not wanting it, but Italian media such as La Repubblica assure that the Cavaliere “continues to dream of becoming president of the Senate”; the second most important position in the Italian Republic, behind the head of state. When the Chambers are formed, on October 13, Berlusconi’s true intentions will be known.