On Sunday Meloni speaks at the Fratelli d’Italia event in Pescara to announce his candidacy as head of the list in all 5 constituencies. The leader of the League Salvini will not be there due to “commitments”, the leader of Forza Italia Tajani will be present
FROM OUR REPORTER
PESCARA – For weeks the directors of the “narration” of Palazzo Chigi had been preparing the wait down to the smallest detail. And so Giorgia Meloni arrived in Pescara when night had already fallen on the blue tents set up in front of the beach.
Cameras off, microphones off and ministers dressed up in sea and land restaurants. Silence, today «Giorgia» speaks. For lto a leader who is running for office in Europe, despite having no intention of sitting on a bench in Strasbourg, the FdI organization has booked all the hotels on the coast. However, to keep the press away and carve out a few hours of quiet, he slept in a resort with spa in Francavilla al Mare. At 11.45 he will take the stage for the programmatic conference, for dissolve the reserve with all the trappings of officialdom.
Antonio Tajani will be sitting in the front row. Matteo Salvini’s chair will be empty instead. The prime minister had asked her two deputies to attend the launch of her race, as leader in all five constituencies. But the leader of the League will only be seen on video. «Maybe he didn’t want to appear subordinate to Giorgia?», the Melonians ask themselves.
But most are convinced that Salvini will defect due to the tensions unleashed in his party by Roberto Vannacci’s candidacy. The Minister of Infrastructure had announced to his colleagues during the last Council of Ministers that he would not show up in Pescara “due to a commitment with my daughter”. Yet it is yet another tear. The sign that Salvini is risking everything. «He didn’t run because he risked getting a fifth of Giorgia’s votes», insinuates a government representative. Drops of poison, distilled softly: «The Northern League members have set the bar at 9%, if it goes below he will have to leave».
In the speech, filed until night, the prime minister will claim the results of this first year and a half, despite two ongoing wars and the “hit” of the Superbonus on the public accounts. She will wave the flags of flexibility of the accounts that he thinks he has achieved in Brussels and of the reform of the premiership, “the mother of all reforms”. She will say to herself convinced that Italy is truly changing Europe with her and “has found its rightful place among the greats”. Proof of this is the trips to Tunis and Cairo with Ursula von der Leyen, which for the prime minister laid the foundations for “a new approach to combating migrant trafficking”.
He will mainly campaign from his office in Palazzo Chigi, so as not to give the idea that in order to exceed the 26% received in politics, she is willing to neglect the government of the country. However the presidency of the G7 already gives it maximum visibility and media resonanceas seen with the announcement that Pope Francis will be in Borgo Egnazia in June (in presence).
The ministers will not run and neither will their sister Ariannawho likes to call himself “a soldier” but in the meantime is starting to become familiar with the public scene.
The prime minister’s staff has not yet made a decision if and how many rallies Meloni will hold before June 8th. Maybe five, maybe only two: we’re talking about Rome and a city to choose between Bologna and Verona. The topics in the notebook will be mainly Italian and there should be no “electoral” trips abroad, except those already foreseen in the institutional agenda of Palazzo Chigi.
As for alliances, the most strictly observant Melonians doubt that the prime minister will allow herself to be “caged” within the confines of the European far right. He will speak in mid-May at the Vox event, but he will do so via video link and not in person. A new “Marbella case”, with the tones of “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Christian”, would not be a good starting point for a leader determined to count when it comes to choosing the new president of the EU Commission . The strategy? Polarize as much as possible by dueling with Elly Schlein, to transform the challenge into a referendum on the government and the prime minister. “I’m interested in consent,” is her mantra.
The objective is to confirm the strength of the governing coalition, but above all to get on the podium as “the first centre-right party in Europe”, with 25 MEPs in the new parliament. «At that point – he confided to his faithful – the road will be all downhill. Let’s also take Piedmont and arrive safely at the end of the legislature.”
