Although Fratelli d’Italia has had a gradual progression of consensus over time, it suffers from a culture still firmly based on the management of power typical of clans. More precisely, the Colle Oppio clan. To date, most of the Fratelli d’Italia ruling class is based entirely on bonds of loyalty proven over time, over years, over decades, over decades. And even after having exhausted the front lines of the party, in Via della Scrofa, people continue to prefer belonging to the clan, rather than opening up to new worlds and new personalities, so as to choose profiles more relevant to the roles to be filled and avoid embarrassing cases.

How Meloni transformed FdI

Yet, the Brothers of Italy had plenty of time to structure, select and co-opt a new and more competent ruling class also in the territories. If at the 2013 elections it did not reach 2% and at the following year’s European elections it did not overcome the barrier, and again at the 2018 elections it only took 4.3%, reaching 6.4% at the 2019 European elections, it is with the Conte I and Draghi governments that there was a decisive reversal of trend. Giorgia Meloni’s obstinate and frenzied opposition to the two governments – which, instead, had seen the involvement of the League and Forza Italia – guaranteed her rise to government of the country, founded, more than anything else, on populist and ambiguous positions on issues typical of early Maga conspiracy theorists. Those were the days of Ed Bannon’s school of sovereignism. It was the era in which Meloni and his closest followers flirted with positions that were generally anti-vax, denialist with respect to the climate emergency, inclined to believe in the existence of the Kalergi Plan and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, including strongly anti-European, anti-Euro and staunchly pro-Putin positions. Orientations that ensured a first surge of consensus. It can be said that, if there had not been Covid and the consequent pandemic season – with all the vicissitudes of the case – we probably would not have had Giorgia Meloni as leader and a party like the Brothers of Italy at the helm of the country. Subsequently, Brothers of Italy, after having won the 2022 elections, softened its in many ways bizarre positions on Europe and international balances (at least apparently), in order to welcome the consensus of a more moderate electorate, especially after the death of Silvio Berlusconi – which decreed the almost comatose state of Forza Italia – and thanks to the inability of the Campo Largo – more or less narrow, to tell the truth – to attract the moderate vote.

FdI and the challenge of administrative quality

In short, Fratelli d’Italia found itself at the helm of the country with a ruling class that was insufficient in quantitative and qualitative terms. An element that is discounted not only at the national government level, but above all at the territorial level. It is no coincidence that the latest rounds of regional elections have decreed a strong difficulty for the Brothers of Italy in terms of consensus, above all due to the smallness of their local ruling class (an element that, for example, also suffers from the 5 Star Movement). In Campania and Puglia, for example, the percentages of around 10% in the provincial capitals show a weakness in the large cities and the inability to fully valorise local figures. These are often chosen more for belonging and loyalty than for evident administrative skills and real consensus. In Veneto, where in the past the party had reached very high percentages with the name of Giorgia Meloni as leader, there has now been a marked decline in consensus compared to other centre-right allies. And the Venetian case is indicative of how Fratelli d’Italia highlights a real difficulty in competing with more solid regional ruling classes. It is clear that here we do not want to make the mistake that many – prey to propaganda frenzy – make, that is, confusing apples (the regional elections) with pears (the political ones), but it appears quite clearly that Fratelli d’Italia must make a leap in quality: broaden out to the surrounding world, overcoming the logic of the Colle Oppio clan.

Gaffes, investigations and scandals that undermine the government

Also because this clan has demonstrated on several occasions that it is not up to the task. Citing only the most striking cases: the investigation by Fanpage.it in the summer of 2024 which uncovered how identity rock concerts were organized in the same historic headquarters of FdI in Colle Oppio – that is, music with theses praising neo-fascism and neo-Nazism – complete with young activists (the ruling class to come) and some parliamentarians who, compliantly, assisted; the case of the undersecretary of Justice Andrea Delmastro Delle Vedove who, in 2023, was involved in an affair linked to the dissemination of confidential information on the anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito; the case of the gunshot in the offices of the Pro Loco of Rosazza, a municipality in the Biella area, during the 2024 New Year’s Eve celebrations, which involved the then FdI deputy Emanuele Pozzolo and Delmastro himself; the case of the extradition complete with state flight to Tripoli of Al Masri, former head of the judicial police of Tripoli accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes and crimes against humanity for torture of migrants in Libyan concentration camps – Giorgia Meloni and the ministers Carlo Nordio, Matteo Piantedosi and the undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano were placed under investigation for aiding and abetting and embezzlement (the Court of Ministers then dismissed Meloni); the intemperates of the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida, who even went so far as to stop a train for personal needs; the series of events, one more embarrassing than the other, of the former Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano who, after being forced to resign following the Maria Rosaria Boccia affair, was then nominated for the Regional Council of Campania (not even being the first of those elected). And in the background the Paragon case, with its potential developments that could shake the government, as well as what is feared regarding the takeover of Mediobanca.

Militancy and clans

Giorgia Meloni appears linked to a twentieth-century political culture, based on militancy, on the loyalty typical of internal clans, which sees the promotion of “loyalists” in key roles, even in the face of obvious gaps, to the detriment of an openness to external expertise and the renewal of party cadres. This leads to not really looking for new faces, with the result that the first national party does not lead any large region in the North or South and does not administer the main Italian cities. Internal tensions and feuds in the territories are, therefore, destined to intensify, especially in view of future challenges in symbolic cities such as Rome and Milan (there are rumors of a possible future candidacy for mayor of Rome by Arianna Meloni, sister of Prime Minister Giorgia, while in Milan there is an internal breakfast derby with the League and an internal one within FdI with Ignazio La Russa). The implicit comparison with the era of Silvio Berlusconi underlines how the ability to build teams and win, even in difficult conditions, was greater then. Today, however, the success of FdI depends above all on Meloni’s national push: if this fails to transform itself into a political project rooted in the territories, local fragility risks throwing the entire balance of the party into crisis.