Survive his creature. This is the categorical imperative of Matteo Salvini who, after having ridden the Vannacci phenomenon, now risks being overwhelmed by it. ‘Captain’ Salvini, having overcome the resistance coming from the territories, has won his bet of focusing on the candidacy of the general champion of preferences (a good 500 thousand) to keep the League alive. Now, however, the fears of Roberto Vannacci’s opponents could materialize: the birth of the committee ‘Il mondo al contrario’ seems to all intents and purposes the prelude to the birth of a personal party. Did the general really take the League like a taxi to be elected in Brussels? This is the doubt of the general’s detractors who, in the columns of the Corriere della Sera, denies without giving too much away.

“These are the people who want to sow discord between me and the League. What exists is an initially cultural movement — Il mondo al contrario — that is expanding, because there are more and more people who support me: look at this square,” explains Vannacci who adds: “First this movement followed a general, then a writer, now it follows a politician and is therefore changing its corporate name.”

For now, there is no certainty that the committee will become a party and, probably, Vannacci himself does not want it. Better to start from a political association that is the place to create his current and, then, possibly scale a party like the League that already has a recognized and recognizable brand. What is certain is that Salvini will have to be careful about Vannacci’s future moves who, it is worth remembering, was not welcomed even by the group of patriots founded by Viktor Orbàn.

Le Pen’s failure to win in France was a hard blow for Salvini and the international context, with the threat of a third world war, certainly does not allow for a repeat of the Papeete gamble. In the fall there will be the League congress where the deputy prime minister will try to claim approval of differentiated autonomy. A mutilated victory that could strengthen Salvini at home, but which has also favored the rapprochement of the center-left forces, until then always very divided, now united for a common battle. The speed with which the oppositions have reached the number of necessary signatures is not a good sign and even if the referendum were to fail to pass the quorum it would pose a problem for the center-right. The battle against differentiated autonomy, in fact, is the first programmatic piece that Schlein is counting on to create the broad-field coalition. In short, Salvini, in the space of a few months, has committed two own goals: he has created yet another enemy on his right and has given new strength to a dying centre-left.

The problems of the other Matteo

Matteo Renzi, on the other hand, after the failure of the centrist project first with Carlo Calenda and then with +Europa, has returned to knock on the door of the center-left. “Some loves never end, they take immense turns and then return”, sang Antonello Venditti and the embrace with Elly Schlein during the heart-stopping match has once again made us rediscover Renzi’s love for the center-left. And the turns, before the latest sudden about-face, have been many. Renzi, from secretary of the PD to Prime Minister, has become the leader of a centrist party that had the ambition to replicate in Italy the success that Emmanuel Macron had in France. The objective, more or less declared, was to launch a takeover bid on the PD by uniting under the same political entity the liberal democrats, the reformists disappointed by the PD and the moderates of the center-right. Renzi, however, lost his bet because Forza Italia, although orphaned by Silvio Berlusconi, has not disappeared.

The leader of Italia Viva, perhaps for fear of finding himself politically irrelevant or perhaps for fear that Meloni will truly govern forever, felt the call of home, but immediately found the door barred. Giuseppe Conte still has a grudge and does not want to hear, at least for now, about having the person most responsible for the fall of his second government back on the team. Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli also maintain a decidedly anti-Renzi position. “If the left wants to veto, it loses; if the center-left wants to take votes, it wins,” is the mantra of Renzi, who has engaged in a personal battle against the prime minister, trying to hit her sister, Arianna Meloni. Will this be enough as an act of loyalty to return to the center-left?

Giorgia Meloni Needs New Friends (And Fewer Relatives)