Five years after winning the European elections triumphantly with 34% of the vote, Matteo Salvini risks seeing another European Parliament vote to remove him from the League leadership. Perhaps because he realized that he did not have much to lose, the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy chose to front the list of the League of Europeans, a figure so controversial that there are party leaders who openly attack him and ministers from the Brotherhood of Italy Prime Minister. From the government of Giorgia Meloni, who did not hide their embarrassment.
Roberto Fanacci was just a decorated general until in August 2023 he published a book sharing his racist, xenophobic and homophobic ideas, as well as his sympathies for Vladimir Putin. El Mundo al Contrario She was best sellerIt sold more than 250,000 copies, but that also cost him an eleven-month suspension on charges of “misconduct,” with Defense Minister Guido Crosetto (Brotherhood of Italy), Salvini’s colleague in the Cabinet, considering that an official military employee cannot express such things. Opinions are made public.
Crosetto’s reasons for dismissing Vanacci were exactly the same as those that prompted Salvini to invite him to head the League’s list. “The calculations of Salvini, who fear a disastrous outcome, seem simple. If Vanacci sold 250,000 books, he could get at least the same number of votes. El Pais.
The controversy surrounding the selection itself may be instructive: Speaking to Italian news agency Adnkronos, pollster Renato Mannheimer said that “the current attacks on Vanacci, regardless of the content, allow the general to have a very useful view,” although it is also too early to know. Whether “your contribution will help grow the league.”
“It’s an election where everyone wins [win-win], as they say. If he is elected, it will be beneficial for the Army and European institutions will also be able to benefit from his ideas and values,” commented Minister Crosetto.
Among the various topics he addresses in his book, the general speaks of gay people as not being “normal,” arguing that they are only viewed as such because of “world conspiracies.” GayShe describes feminists as “contemporary witches” and attacks Italian volleyball champion Paola Egono (the daughter of Nigerian parents, who was the target of several racist attacks in Italy), considering that she is not “fully Italian” because “it is clear that her physical features do not represent Italianness.”
The general, who later admitted that he admired the Russian president (he was a military attaché in Moscow when Putin invaded Ukraine), continued to attract attention. He recently referred to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as a “statesman” and said children with disabilities should learn separately from other students.
“You cannot be an alternative to Meloni by going to the far right,” he said. Financial Times Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister of Economy and Finance and veteran member of the Association. “My party was born to talk about taxes, less state, more freedom, not allyship with it [políticos] Who believe that children with disabilities should not go to school.”
“An existential question”
In addition to Giorgetti, several relevant leaders of the League were keen to distance themselves from Fanacci’s candidacy, including the governor of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Luciano Fedriga, and the heads of the party’s parliamentary groups in Parliament, Riccardo Molinari (Council). Representatives) and Massimiliano Romeo (Senate), lists El Pais.
Most of the criticism of Salvini comes from the north, the original stronghold of the party that was born as the Northern League, a xenophobic formation that oscillates between separatism and a defense of fiscal federalism, and which Salvini re-established more than a decade ago, making the League (it doesn’t really have a title) party. A patriot known for attacking immigration.
According to the latest opinion polls, with about a month to go until the elections, the League appears in fifth place with 8.3%, behind Força Italia (8.7%), the party founded by Silvio Berlusconi and now led by the Foreign Minister. Affairs, Antonio Tajani. Having been questioned since his first regional election defeats, Salvini was the target of harsh internal criticism after the 2022 legislative elections, when the far-right coalition he helped cement won the election, but the League fell short of 9%.
Political expert Daniele Albertazzi said: “Salvini is in trouble, he has serious problems.” Financial Times. He summed up by saying: “They are shooting at him from all directions.” “He made some serious mistakes… He has no credibility with voters or the right,” the investigator described. For Albertazzi, if the League was “less than 10%” in June and “behind Força Italia”, it would become “clearly a party without an aim” and then it would truly be an “existential question”.
