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“Matteo Salvini is not and has never been the leader of the center right. He made unilateral decisions, speaking only for the League. He never followed the style of Silvio Berlusconi and, today Giovanni Toti is right, he was never in charge of summarizing a plural right center ”. Renato Brunetta, economist, iron Berlusconian, former Minister of Public Administrations famous for the battle against the “loafers”, is now a member of Forza Italia (of which he was group leader) and directs the economic weekly “Mondays of the Riformista”. In addition to firing “with sympathy” but zero on the Captain, he immediately invokes a turn to the right: “The united center-right is an illusion. We need a constituent, a founding congress that defines values, souls and program. Forza Italia has a management team extraordinary, but unfortunately in the name of the unity of the center right he no longer has a political line.
After the Regionals, the forced question for the center-right is: how strong is Matteo Salvini’s leadership?
I say this without controversy, also because I have been repeating it for more than two years: Salvini is not the leader of the center right. It never was. The only rule the center-right had given itself in the last political elections was that the leader of the party with the most votes, if the coalition won, would automatically become prime minister. On this basis, Salvini was indicated in 2018. But although Silvio Berlusconi and Giorgia Meloni asked him with great determination, he did not want to look for the missing votes for Palazzo Chigi: he said that he did not intend to “go for the mushrooms” . And he preferred to ally himself with the M5S, restore its centrality after the defeat at the polls, and break the center right.
Now, the accusation of having restored centrality to Cinquestelle is directed at the Democratic Party.
True, but the first was for Salvini to become a junior partner in the Conte I government. With the result of great disasters: the healing of the Constitution, confirmed by the referendum, was a fundamental point of his contract. On that occasion Salvini proved to be a non-unifying leader: if he had listened to us, the legislature would have had a different meaning. And with that government, Forza Italia began to lose votes cannibalized by the League.
The yellow-green government election was not shared by you. Was it the only time the Captain showed little desire for unity?
But no. The motion that opened the government crisis in August 2019 was signed only by his party. He didn’t ask the others for anything. They were all unilateral decisions that said “if you want that’s how it is, otherwise I’ll go alone.” We have seen the results. Giovanni Toti is right today: he has never assumed the task of synthesis, of a plural right center. He has always spoken for the League: we have one more councilor, one more city. And if you lose, it’s someone else’s fault.
He is also the leader of the largest party and the one most exposed to the spotlight. Isn’t that inevitable?
As Berlusconi has always maintained, to win the center-right must be plural and with equal dignity, without lion leaders.
Has Berlusconi never been a lion?
It was the exact opposite. Umberto Bossi with 4% started everything. And then there is a problem of political supply: if the center-right is only sovereign, it will remain the loser.
This is a point. But, how can the current center-right think about changing its face, having as points two leaders, Salvini and Meloni, who are sovereign and populist?
We need a Constituent Assembly of the center right now. A founding congress that defines values, souls, programs. A convention that decides what to do in Europe, Month, immigration policies, use of money from the Recovery Fund.
Does Berlusconi agree to make the center right a constituent?
Of course, we talk about it. We can’t go on like this anymore. The united center right is an illusion. Salvini and Meloni’s interviews today confirm this. But do Italians know that the votes of the center-right were decisive for the Yes in the referendum? If Lega and FdI had sided with the No, the latter would have prevailed. And the center-right would have won the party, the party, the party: they saved the Constitution, put the government in crisis by going to the spring elections, elected immediately after the President of the Republic. Instead, the forest’s Salvinian appeal prevailed over an already broken M5S contract, which makes no sense.
In short, is Salvini a story of missed opportunities?
Not only. It is a story of masochism. Today we would have the Cinquestelle restarted and the government in crisis.
All good. But isn’t the reality that without a moderate liberal component, you can call it whatever you want, the center-right is destined not to get out of the opposition’s siege? And that this component, with Berlusconi’s departure from the political scene, is today a black hole?
Berlusconi made a generous choice of units, poorly rewarded by Salvini. Forza Italia cut the votes in half from 14 to 6-7%, weakening the entire system. Of course, the coalition that cannibalizes itself cannot grow or win. And Salvini – I say it without resentment – is not the leader: he never wanted it and he never made up his mind. He never followed Berlusconi’s style. At the end of the day, with the Lega, even with Bossi, it has always been like this: either the candidates are leaguers, and then they are never wrong, or they must be subordinate. I myself bear the scars: in Venice, the League did not vote for me. As has happened now in Puglia and Campania. In fact, this vote certifies the rebirth of the Northern League.
So as a moderate leader, will you get Luca Zaia? Or Toti as “federator”?
A process must be restarted. An assembly, a federation. With a statute that gives equality. So the leader can be Tajani, Zaia, Toti, Brunetta, Carfagna, Gelmini… Forza Italia has an extraordinary group of political and parliamentary leadership. Unfortunately, on behalf of the center-right unit, he no longer has a political line.
First point on the political agenda?
The Month: the united center-right votes yes, for the good of the country. So we must listen to the productive classes, be pro-European and guarantors, review the Dublin Treaty without blinders or sovereign rigidity. So, there are almost 8 million Not transversal to the referendum, I think with a predominance of the center-right: let’s make them become a subject of political dialogue with the center-left in favor of parliamentary democracy, institutional counterweights and the new electoral law . It is extraordinary territory to restart avoiding grilline drifts. Without any ambiguity on the part of the left, just to make the reforms that Italy needs.
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