The leader of Italy’s far-right League party, Matteo Salvini, whose path to the country’s top job seemed almost certain two weeks ago, has been forced into the political wilderness by an unlikely coalition.
While Giuseppe Conte returns to the post of prime minister with a new parliamentary alliance between the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment, populist Five Star Movement, Mr Salvini has been left fuming and, at least temporarily, reflective.
“Was the mistake mine?” the outgoing deputy prime minister said shortly before Mr Conte was formally asked to create a government by President Sergio Mattarella.
“I didn’t think that there would be ... parliamentarians, who instead of going to elections, would vote for the government of Goofy and Mickey Mouse,” he said.
The League leader, who has dominated Italy’s government for the past 14 months, sparked two weeks of frenetic political wrangling when he demanded new elections and forced Mr Conte’s resignation.
Mr Salvini had sought to capitalise on a growing lead in the opinion polls by destroying the coalition the League had joined as a junior partner with the Five Star group last year.
In Italy’s general elections last year, the Five Star Movement won twice as many votes as the League. However, in May’s elections to the European Parliament, the League won 35 per cent of the vote and the Five Star won just 17 per cent.
Francesco Galietti, chief executive of the political risk consultancy Policy Sonar in Rome, told The National that Mr Salvini had been “hung out to dry” after his political miscalculation. He said that the PD and Five Star would now attempt to “make Salvini harmless”.
“If [the government] lasts one and a half years ... maybe by then Salvini will have faded away,” Mr Galietti said. “The bet is to survive long enough and wait until Salvini has disappeared.”
While Mr Conte, PD leader Nicola Zingaretti and Five Star chief Luigi Di Maio all posed amicably for the cameras after the announcement of their new deal, their smiles hide years of mutual loathing.
“I see the cracks in the wall and it is only the beginning,” Mr Galietti said, recalling that the two parties had exchanged political blows over the years.
“It was not just the ordinary exchange of shots between political competitors. What we have witnessed all these years was real animosity, actual hatred. The PD was not just a competitor or an opponent. It was an enemy,” he said.
The new coalition faces an uphill battle in the coming days. According to La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, by Monday Mr Conte must divide and apportion ministerial positions. The price of his own premiership appears to have been a demotion for Mr Di Maio, a deputy prime minister in the previous government.
The alliance will also have to rush through a hasty autumn budget to meet EU deadlines, with a likely VAT hike to cover the shortfall. The government, now more amenable to Brussels with the pro-EU PD on board, must also negotiate a new position at the European Commission before the current session expires on October 31.
