What will the current born in Salvini’s League do?
Lega: it is not a split, but in fact it is a current in the party in which the currents had never been admitted until now. Paola Sacchi's note
The federal council this time Matteo Salvini brings it together in Rome, this afternoon in Montecitorio. And not, as usually, in the historic headquarters of the Lega in Via Bellerio, in Milan. The proposals for the government team will come out of the summit. And the same physical proximity to the offices of the Chamber of the Brothers of Italy, where Giorgia Meloni, awaiting the appointment by the Head of State, is weaving the web with the allies for the formation of the government, objectively highlights the weight that Salvini has as the second shareholder, albeit above a tie to Forza Italia.
The two parties, decisive partners, are almost coupled. The Lega, formerly the first party of the center-right, suffered heavy losses, but FdI, which overtook it in the North, did not break through at 30 per cent. In Salvini's choice to convene the federal council in Rome, after he had gathered his 95 parliamentarians in the capital in recent days, about 16 per cent of parliament, but perhaps one could also read against the light a first response in terms of image plastic to the internal "challenge" that came from the "committee for the North", created within the national party "Lega Salvini premier", by the founder and president of the Northern League, Umberto Bossi.
The first signal in terms of the image that seems to come from Salvini is that he does not renounce his National League which brought the party in double figures, up to the peaks of 34% in the Europeans, after about 4% inherited from Roberto's secretariat. Maroni succeeded Bossi himself, following the Belsito "case". The first indirect response to the Bossian initiative, in which the MEP Angelo Ciocca and the former non-reappointed deputy and former secretary of the Lombard League Paolo Grimoldi collaborate as operational arms, was a note on Via Bellerio on Saturday evening in which it was emphasized that the the next legislature will be the one that will bring "the autonomy of the regions that the Constitution provides". And "the protagonist will be the Ministry of Regional Affairs".
Immediately the toto-names, destined to go crazy in the news until the new parliament is installed and the Head of State has not given the office to the premier, indeed, as everything would suggest, to the premier, he immediately framed the League leader in the box of this dicastery. Yesterday Salvini after saying “there is a lot of optimism, I can't wait for the government to start working”, he ironically said: “I see myself as a candidate in the newspapers in eight different ministries”. In reality, the League has not abandoned the battle to get its leader back to the Viminale, even if the toto-names give this low possibility and, in any case, as the group leader in the Chamber, Riccardo Molinari, said at the end of the last federal council, the League asks for a "heavy ministry" for the leader, defined today by the Republic as "under siege".
Bossi, re-elected to the House, speaking with the Adnkronos news agency, says : "What I am doing is in line with what I have done all my life: asserting the reasons of the North". Words, writes the agency, “that seem to throw water on the fire, crediting the reading of a move by the old boss that is not an open confrontation with Salvini and his national party. The president of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, also spoke: “There is no branch within the League, but Bossi's will to underline the need for autonomy. Then we need to understand better, we still don't know anything ”.
It is not a split because the "committee for the North" is internal to the party and only welcomes members of the Lega Salvini premier. The former group leader in the Chamber of the Northern League Marco Reguzzoni, during the Bossi secretariat, precisely because, as he explains to the Lapresse agency, he is no longer a member, he will not be part of it but looks with interest at the initiative for the "productive North" affected from the crisis.
It is not a split, but in fact it is a current in the party in which the currents had never been admitted until now. The word now to Salvini and the federal council that had already squared around the leader, confirming full confidence both in Pontida and in the last summit.
But the point seems quite different: both the Lega and Forza Italia are asking for a political government. Silvio Berlusconi's number two, Antonio Tajani, is clear: "Only a few technicians can stay there". Meloni, leaving Montecitorio last night, said that we must "do it quickly". Then: “Io draghiana? No mess, it's about ensuring a normal transition ”. And when asked if the center-right will join the consultations, he replied: "We haven't talked about it yet."
In short, the government puzzle is not very simple. And yesterday's critical words by the president of Confindustria Carlo Bonomi on the stop to the Fornero law and on the Flat Tax, two flagship themes in the election campaign of the Lega and also of Forza Italia on the Flat Tax, however within the common program of the center-right, have rekindled the debate in the coalition. The Northern League economist and senator Claudio Borghi, very close to Salvini, tweeted caustically: "The first appeals to deny the program have already begun."
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/salvini-lega-nord/ on Tue, 04 Oct 2022 05:23:05 +0000.