Italian
culture minister quits after affair scandal embarrasses Meloni government
Maria
Rosaria Boccia, Gennaro Sangiuliano’s former lover, said she was nominated as
an unpaid adviser last month
Reuters in
Rome
Fri 6 Sep
2024 13.52 EDT
The Italian
culture minister quit on Friday after a controversy over a consultancy role for
his former lover had become an embarrassment for prime minister Giorgia
Meloni’s government.
Gennaro
Sangiuliano, a 62-year-old former journalist, had faced a media storm since
Maria Rosaria Boccia, a self-proclaimed fashion entrepreneur, said last month
she had been nominated “adviser to the minister for major events”.
The culture
ministry initially denied such an appointment, but Sangiuliano later explained
he had agreed to take her on as an unpaid consultant before changing his mind
due to conflict of interest.
“I deem it
necessary for the institutions and for myself to hand in my resignation,”
Sangiuliano said in Friday’s letter to the prime minister, defending his record
and denying any breach of ministerial rules.
In a tearful
prime-time TV interview on Wednesday, Sangiuliano acknowledged that Boccia had
been his lover, apologised to his wife and Meloni, and said the prime minister
had rejected his first offer to resign.
The case has
dominated front pages and evoked comparisons with past sex-and-politics
scandals, including the “bunga bunga” parties hosted by the former premier
Silvio Berlusconi.
In past
weeks, Boccia has filled her Instagram account with pictures of herself
accompanying Sangiuliano to various public events and showing that she had
access to ministry offices and documents.
Angelo
Bonelli, the leader of the opposition Green Europe party, filed a complaint to
police this week, urging them to investigate the minister for possible misuse
of public funds and disclosure of confidential information.
Italy’s
audit court is also looking into the case, its representatives said on Friday.
Sangiuliano, who repeatedly said “not a single euro” of public money was spent
on Boccia, reacted by saying it would give him a chance to clear his position.
Presenting
his achievements in his resignation letter, including fighting alleged cronyism
in the disbursement of cinema subsidies, he said this work could “not be
sullied and especially stopped by matters of gossip”.
Meloni paid
tribute on X to Sangiuliano as a “capable person and an honest man”. She picked
to replace him Alessandro Giuli, the head of the Maxxi contemporary arts museum
in Rome and also a former journalist.
It was the
first change in her rightwing coalition government, which currently chairs the
G7 forum of leading democracies and has over the past two years looked solid,
with high popularity ratings and facing a divided opposition.
Sangiuliano
was politically close to Meloni, but not a member of her party. He was a
gaffe-prone minister, saying for example at an awards ceremony that he would
“try to read” the books that, as a juror, he was supposed to have already read.
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