Matteo Salvini’s risky call

Matteo Salvini’s risky call

The League leader’s plan to become prime minister is looking less and less certain.

By          JACOPO BARIGAZZI         8/20/19, 5:00 AM CET Updated 8/20/19, 5:19 AM CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/snap-election-matteo-salvini/

Although ahead in the polls, Salvini — who currently serves as both interior minister and one of two deputy prime ministers — has plenty to lose | Eliano Imperato/AFP via Getty Images

Matteo Salvini's call for a snap election earlier this month was meant to set in motion his march into Italy's highest office.

The League leader envisioned an October vote, resulting in his swift coronation as prime minister. The plan for an inexorable rise to power, however, is floundering.

Tuesday's Senate session, during which current Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will take the floor and could face a vote of no confidence, might give rise to a very different scenario.

Conte is expected to resign, rather than wait for a confidence motion, and leave Italy in the hands of President Sergio Mattarella, who has a range of options regarding the next steps.

One potential outcome — a center-left alliance that could oust the League from government — has spooked Salvini enough to signal that he's prepared to backtrack and continue the uneasy coalition between his party and the 5Star Movement.

Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, will likely examine whether there is another stable majority in parliament and, if not, when the next election should be.

First, in the Senate last week, Salvini indicated his openness to postponing the election until after the parliament agrees to cut down the number of lawmakers, a key demand of the 5Stars. (Had the League accommodated this request prior to pulling the plug on the coalition, they might have prolonged the government's life for a few months.)

Then, a few days later, he hinted he is open to further dialogue with the 5Stars, saying that “my mobile is always on.” But 5Stars leader Luigi Di Maio wasn't impressed: “Now he's repentant, but the damage is already done,” he said.

Risky business

Although ahead in the polls, Salvini — who currently serves as both interior minister and one of two deputy prime ministers — has plenty to lose.

If the 5Stars and the center-left Democratic Party team up to prevent a snap election and a League-led government, or if an interim government is put in place, Salvini could end up could losing power altogether — despite the League doubling its support from 17 percent in the 2018 general election to 34 percent in the last European election.

Even some in the League believe Salvini made a major mistake in calling for a snap vote this month. Corriere della Sera quoted a senior party member, Giancarlo Giorgetti, as saying that Salvini got the timing wrong: “For months I have told him to pull the plug, and when I have told him not to do that, he has announced the crisis."

Tuesday's Senate session, during which current Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will take the floor and could face a vote of no confidence, might give rise to a very different scenario | Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images

Former League MEP Mario Borghezio, trying to explain why Salvini took what now appears to be a major risk, denied that the party leader had misjudged the situation and instead blamed Italy's Byzantine politics.

"It wasn't a mistake, he simply could not foresee some unexpected changes that nobody was able to imagine,” he said, referring to the 5Stars and the Democratic Party's change of heart regarding a possible alliance. (The two parties had previously rejected the idea of teaming up.)

All options on the table

It's too early to say whether Salvini's backtracking over the past few days will bear fruit — and much depends on what Conte will do on Tuesday.

For his part, Salvini has denied making any sort of U-turn and, talking to reporters on Sunday after a rally in central Italy, said that for him the point of the Senate debate on Tuesday is that “either there's a government that we can call as such or there are elections.”

If Conte resigns, as many believe he will, all eyes will turn to Mattarella, who cut his holiday short to deal with the crisis. The president will likely examine whether there is another stable majority in parliament and, if not, when the next election should be. That could either be soon or as late as 2023, after the next presidential election.

Also a possibility is yet another U-turn, with the League and the 5Stars getting back together, though the latter deny they have any interest in reviving the coalition despite Salvini's recent attempts to woo them.

“The real game will start tomorrow with Conte's resignation,” an Italian official said on Monday.

A pro-EU alliance between the Democratic Party and the 5Stars could allow the latter to join a political family in the European Parliament| Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

That game could even extend to Brussels. A pro-EU alliance between the Democratic Party and the 5Stars could allow the latter to join a political family in the European Parliament, where the 5Stars currently sit in isolation after other groups rejected them.

Sandro Gozi — a former EU undersecretary in the Italian government of Matteo Renzi who has become an adviser to the French government — has previously ruled out any deal between Renew Europe, which includes President Emmanuel Macron's En Marche, and the 5Stars in the European Parliament.

Now, however, Gozi told POLITICO that an anti-League alliance “would imply a new cooperation with the 5Stars ... in Brussels, starting from the choice of the Italian commissioner,” although it “is premature to make other valuations.” The same would apply to Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party if it joined such an alliance, he said.

Yet Monica Frassoni, co-chair of the European Green Party, said that “problems with 5Stars are not confined to this last experience with the League," adding that during discussions in 2014 they found many 5Stars positions to be incompatible with their own.