Thoughts and projects of Salvini and Zaia
What will Zaia do? Paola Sacchi's note
To think that saying no to the third term will take away Mr. over 70 percent of the votes, i.e. the most voted governor in Italy since 2010, means not knowing Luca Zaia even by hearsay. In fact, he himself yesterday in Padua, smiling next to his leader Matteo Salvini, deputy prime minister and minister of Infrastructure and Transport, at an initiative of the "Italy of yes", confirmed that he continues to sleep well.
The “Doge” made a post about X next to “Matteo” which means many things. Only superficial or bad faith observers can think of a denial of the gossip that fills the left-wing media on the alleged conflicts between Salvini and Zaia. No, the post is political. It is not an episode of the fake soap operas on the League orchestrated by the left and its media, artfully amplifying the positions of some northern dissidents who would like to return to a geological era ago in which, as Salvini said, confirming his project of a national League, “there wasn't the harmful excessive power of the European Union and therefore at a regional level the League was playing its part”. No, Salvini himself confirms that the message of that post by the "Doge" is entirely political. Which in fact inaugurates, together with Zaia, a negotiation that is not very easy for FdI and FI.
The gist of the message is very political and very simple: you don't want a third mandate and therefore you no longer want Zaia as a candidate? We will continue to support him, he "could do whatever he wants – says Salvini – obviously he loves Veneto". But, he continues, "if we bring home the Autonomy, the Olympics, the restructuring and other projects of his and the Region, a defender of the Veneto in Europe would be useful".
Zaia in a commissioner role? That would seem to be the allusion. "I don't have anxiety and I don't lose sleep over the third term", cuts short the person directly involved, Zaia, who also reiterates on his future: "I'll plan it myself, when the time comes". But it is clear that another phase of negotiations between the League and the allies is beginning. Zaia could also be an Agriculture Commissioner, a crucial issue. Or even run as league leaders at the European Championships. Although he seems to have said no to Salvini so far. So FdI and FI, whose secretary Antonio Tajani yesterday said that he wouldn't mind a candidacy from Flavio Tosi – former mayor of Verona, former Northern League member now with FI, the eternal duelist defeated by Zaia, who was instead wanted first by Umberto Bossi , then again confirmed by Salvini – the "Doge" could find himself as the head of the list in all the constituencies. Zaia was affectionately defined by Bossi as a "Christian Democrat" also due to the DC origins of the Liga Veneta as well as his tough but soft character. Only a fool would think that he indulges in head shots. Without agreeing the moves with his secretary.
Always orthodox in respecting party rites, while obviously asserting his electoral weight, Zaia is the one who, as soon as he learned of the first results of the plebiscite for the first mandate, immediately disciplinedly called the founding "Boss", namely Bossi, still federal secretary of the League . Then Roberto Maroni, the powerful number two, then Minister of the Interior. We were with him as Panorama correspondents when the "Doge" left everyone at the headquarters in Treviso and went to a restaurant on the banks of the Piave to wait for the results in the scullery with his waitress friends also from the "Manhattan", the nightclub in Godega di Sant'Urbano where "Luca" from Bibano, a hamlet of Godega, was the PR in the 80s and invented the first disco flyers. This is to say how much the "Doge" remained a person very attached to his land, to his youthful friends, to his people. Which always gives him great inner security, as do his beloved horses. But Zaia, who with his wife Raffaella chose to remain and live in his native countryside and not on the Grand Canal, has always been a highly esteemed figure also by the Venetian Church and by great industrialists of the North East, some even with famous surnames, yes he says they are even his voters.
Is Zaia popular only in Veneto? Well, this is another of the urban legends spread by the left. As Minister of Agriculture, a role in which Silvio Berlusconi wanted him, with whom Zaia had a relationship of great friendship, he also made himself much loved in Naples for an important recognition obtained for the Pizza Margherita and in Sicily for some battles fought in defense of the fishermen. Zaia is a true Northern League supporter, but a very empathetic and multifaceted figure. Which can also gain consensus on the left among reformists as well as in the world of high entrepreneurship in the North East, the engine of the Italian economy. Having him around as League leader in all the constituencies for FdI and FI, and for the whole train of "rebalancing" desires at the Regionals, would be a headache that could put Veneto itself at risk, after having already practically lost Sardinia as for a goal conceded into an empty net. This time it would be a real own goal.
Zaia continues to sleep at night. While FI and FdI could also duel over the same candidate, with FdI having long expressed its preferences for Luca De Carlo. But in the end wouldn't it be wiser for the center-right to re-nominate Zaia and say yes to a third term? Meanwhile Salvini doesn't give up: on the 23rd in Rome there will be a new meeting of Identity and Democracy, the group where he sits in Europe, after the one in Florence.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/pensieri-e-progetti-di-salvini-e-zaia/ on Sat, 16 Mar 2024 07:08:32 +0000.