I’ll tell you about the Quirinale’s hand in the evolution of Luigi Di Maio

25 June 20222 years ago babelfish

The political metamorphosis of Luigi Di Maio as seen by Francesco Damato

Ah, how I would have liked to once again have been a fly at the Quirinale to enjoy the informative passage of the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who had climbed the hill before announcing the split of MoVimento 5 in a television monologue a short distance away, in a Roman hotel. Stars. Which increases the number of parties of the majority still in government but at the same time changes the balance of power in Parliament. The ceremonial office of the Presidency of the Republic will also have to take this into account for the order in which parliamentary representatives will have to parade in the event of a possible crisis.

The pentastellated groups due to the effect of the sixty or so deputies and senators who came out in the wake of the Foreign Minister will no longer be able to boast of being the first, now being the second after those of Matteo Salvini's League. And that's not all, because they could go back further if the crisis of the movement chaired by Giuseppe Conte were to worsen in the "biodegradable" perspective feared by the founder, guarantor and consultant Beppe Grillo himself, who also stood at the window. Indeed, relying on the therapeutic effects of "sunlight", in a particularly torrid summer.

I do not think I am violating a state secret, perhaps risking the jail although home experienced in 1983, and then dissolved in an acquittal without excuses, if I collect and relaunch a legend according to which Di Maio in 2013 won the interest and perhaps also a little sympathy of the then Secretary General of the Chamber Ugo Zampetti, destined to become Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic with Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale.

In the general disorientation caused by the arrival of the pentastellati in Montecitorio, and by their improvised rites of rupture and provocation, Zampetti would have been struck by the unusual – for the grillini – elegance of Luigi Di Maio, who landed with a blow to one of the vice presidencies of the Room. Where "the ex bibitaro", as he was called due to his precedents at the Naples stadium, showed instead a useful will to learn. And it seems that Zampetti had the task of satisfying his desire to know, so to speak, dutifully paid by the highest Montecitorio official.

I don't know if more with amazement or satisfaction for the work done, Zampetti found himself at the Quirinale Di Maio in 2013 as head of the most voted movement in the election of the Chambers and accompanied, always dutifully, the approach with the head of state for the formation of the first government of the new legislature. Which certainly could not ignore the party most represented in Parliament, especially after Matteo Salvini's spontaneous renunciation to try as head of the center-right that had overtaken the grillini without however winning an absolute majority.

From Di Maio's hat, and not only that, came the proposal to Mattarella to send the virtually unknown Giuseppe Conte to Palazzo Chigi, candidate before the elections by the grillini for the much more modest post of Minister of Public Administration. It was rumored in the Roman palaces of politics that it was also or precisely Zampetti who persuaded Mattarella to award the post, although Conte had no political experience, not even as a municipal councilor, as the President of the Republic himself would later publicly point out.

I leave you to imagine, with these precedents, the dismay felt at the Quirinale when Di Maio turned against Mattarella's refusal to fully accept the list of ministers proposed to him by Conte, including Paolo Savona at the Ministry of Economy, threatening to promote his mass. accused before the Consulta for betrayal of the Constitution: something that made even Grillo jump in his chair.

But the surprises weren't meant to end there. Having healed this wound, Di Maio opened another by clamorously interfering in the management of the crisis after the announcement of the conferral of a new post to form the government to the economist Carlo Cottarelli, interrupted in his mandate by the decision of Di Maio and Matteo Salvini , candidates for the vice presidency of the Council with Conte, to resume government negotiations by removing the obstacle of Savona, "relegated" to the Ministry for European Affairs, as if as a real or presumed Eurosceptic he could do less damage there.

It was also thanks to the good offices of Zampetti, contacted by telephone and repeatedly by Di Maio, that according to radio Montecitorio, let's say, Mattarella also accepted this forcing and granted one or more extensions due to the exhaustion of the negotiations and the formation of the yellow-green government.

Again Di Maio, as vice president of the Council and multiple minister of Labor and Economic Development, would have surprised the Quirinale by going to Paris with his friend Alessandro Di Battista to support the revolt of the yellow vests against Macron. With which Mattarella had to sweat the proverbial seven shirts, perhaps a few less but also a few more, to apologize and close the accident.

Seeing it proposed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the second Conte government, with the Democratic Party taking over from the Northern League, must not have been without some concern at the Quirinale. Where, however, they had the time and the opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief. And what a sigh, seeing him arrive on Tuesday evening to announce that he is leaving the 5 Star Movement to better support the Atlanticist Prime Minister Mario Draghi from the sways, at least, of Conte in the middle of the Russian war against Ukraine. Zampetti's bet, if there really was one four years ago, was really successful. Luckily for Mattarella too, we will see if Italy has also returned to the normality of "one that is not worth the other", as Di Maio himself admitted.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-racconto-lo-zampino-del-quirinale-nellevoluzione-di-luigi-di-maio/ on Sat, 25 Jun 2022 04:15:28 +0000.