The road leading to the end of the three-day Fratelli d’Italia event in Pescara couldn’t have been more downhill. After dozens of panels involving 135 speakers and 2,200 delegates crowded under the tensile structure overlooking the sea on the beach, today it will be Giorgia Meloni’s turn to close the event by launching her candidacy for the European elections on 8 and 9 June. Before her, Antonio Tajani will speak, who has also called a press conference for 3.30 pm at the regional headquarters of Forza Italia.
While Matteo Salvini will be missing, he announced yesterday afternoon that he will only speak via video link. A choice due to personal reasons, Fdi assures, trying to throw water on the fire. Yes, because the decision not to be physically present in Pescara comes at the end of two days of tension over the Vannacci case. Frictions within the League, but also with Fdi. After Friday’s controversy between the minister Guido Crosetto and the deputy secretary of the Northern League Andrea Crippa, the general’s interview with La Stampa yesterday raised the tension further. With a clear distance from the idea of establishing separate classes for the disabled by all the Fdi big names (from Giovanni Donzelli to Tommaso Foti, passing through the ministers Andrea Abodi and Eugenia Roccella). The tones, however, are not polemical. Because, evidently, Meloni does not want to open fronts with Salvini on the eve of a day that must be entirely dedicated to his candidacy as head of the list in all five electoral constituencies. The Prime Minister will formalize it today around midday, during a speech which should last approximately an hour and in which she will review the things done in these eighteen months at Palazzo Chigi. Focusing above all on European dossiers, from immigration to the Pnrr. The same ones he will focus on during an electoral campaign in which Meloni wants to keep an institutional profile, so much so that at the moment he is thinking about one or two rallies at most (the final one in Rome). But it is not excluded that in the end he might decide not to do it at all.
On the beach of Pescara there is an atmosphere of cautious optimism. According to Minister Raffaele Fitto, in fact, the objective is “to get the same votes as the Politicians”, which after eighteen months in government would actually be a success. And in fact, at least according to the polls, 26% is absolutely within reach. A good mood perhaps also linked to the vicissitudes of the Vannacci affair, given that in recent days the fear that the general’s candidacy could take away votes from Fdi is fading. «In Veneto the balance will be unchanged, because if it makes the League gain a few more votes it will make it lose just as many», explains the Venetian coordinator Luca De Carlo. And the fact that Salvini ultimately decided to avoid being physically present in Pescara where journalists would obviously have asked him about Vannacci suggests that he is not completely wrong. But the circumstance of finding himself in the center-right’s family photo as the only leader who chose not to run personally (unlike Meloni and Tajani) may also have had a bearing on the decision, communicated by the leader of the League directly to Meloni.
The fact that there will be no photo opportunity today, however, is really the last thing on the minds of the militants gathered in Pescara.
Definitely more passionate about the FantaCongresso, a sort of FantaSanremo in Fdi style, with a score for each sentence said on stage (“welcome to the Giorgia beach party”, it was worth 50 points and it seems that Marco Osnato took them home).
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