Salvini wants to lead Italy. He may be about to get the chance

[Mike 03]

A dangerous new phase in Italy’s populist drama is beginning, with the nationalist League set on devouring its coalition partner.

We are witnessing the beginning of act two in the drama of Italian populism, and it is a showdown between the protagonists who made phase one happen. Since the election of 2018, Matteo Salvini’s League has grown stronger, and it has had enough of its coalition partner, the Five Star Movement. It now feels it can claim sole leadership of the country, with Salvini as prime minister.

It’s a development that Steve Bannon, the theoretician of the US populist wave that elected Trump in 2016, foresaw. The day after the coalition was formed, Bannon said of Salvini and the Five Star leader, Luigi Di Maio: “They will govern together, but Salvini is the real leader, because Di Maio resembles [Emmanuel] Macron.” This was always a tactical alliance, because in the end populism is based on there being only one leader.

...

What we are seeing is essentially a revolt of the Italian middle classes. It started out as a protest against inequality, migrants and corruption; it has grown in strength by generating conflicts and new enemies, and it craves a strong leader rather than a complicated, amorphous alliance.

The nationalism of the League involves closing ports to migrants; planning to impose fines of up to €1m on anyone assisting a refugee at sea; voting in Strasbourg against the new president of the European commission and aiming to make the next budget a platform for openly challenging Europe over its fiscal rules. With Salvini at the helm, it all plays out in a public performance featuring crucifixes, beach orations, the vocabulary of football ultras and a tribal exaltation of ethnic-nationalist identity. The hostility to migrants and the duel with Europe are the two pillars around which Salvini garners votes, making mincemeat of the Five Star Movement, which is banking on a policy of offering a basic income to “defeat poverty”. That was too vague an objective to ever be credible.

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More at link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/18/matteo-salvini-italy-populist-league-five-star-movement

[elleng]

1. Italy's 5-Star Says Salvini No Longer a Credible Partner.

ROME/LUCCA — Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement said on Sunday that Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League, was no longer a credible partner, apparently closing the door on any possibility of resurrecting the ruling coalition.

Top brass of 5-Star met on Sunday at the villa of the movement's founder, comedian Beppe Grillo, to discuss their stance after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte addresses the Senate on Tuesday on the government crisis.

"All those present were agreed in defining Salvini as no longer a credible interlocutor," 5-Star said in a statement.

Among those at the meeting were 5-Star's leader Luigi Di Maio, its speaker of the lower house Roberto Fico, and Alessandro Di Batista, who is not in parliament but is perhaps its most charismatic politician with a large personal following.

On Aug. 8, in an attempt to capitalize on his surging popularity, Salvini announced his alliance with 5-Star was no longer workable and called for elections that could crown him as prime minister.

However, his move has not gone to plan.

The League put forward a motion of no-confidence in the government, but 5-Star and the opposition Democratic Party (PD) refused to debate it and their politicians are now openly discussing forming a coalition among themselves to sideline Salvini.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/08/18/world/europe/18reuters-italy-politics.html

[Tiggeroshii]

2. I like the sound of that.

Nationalists need to go away.