Italian lawmakers this Friday elected Lorenzo Fontana, a member of Matteo Salvini’s League, as the new president of the Chamber of Deputies, which allows the two main right-wing formations to share control of Parliament after the victory of the candidate of the Brothers of Italy in the Senate.
Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini divided up Parliament by placing their respective candidates in the presidency of the Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies, excluding from this first distribution of power the other coalition partner, the veteran Silvio Berlusconi, visibly angry.
The Chamber of Deputies elected this Friday president Lorenzo Fontana, an ultra-Catholic “Salvinian” admirer of Vladimir Putin which captured 222 votes, with the support of the right-wing coalition that won the elections on September 25, formed by the Salvini’s League, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
The election of Fontana, a referent of the hard wing of the League for his positions against the LGTBI collective, abortion and sanctions against Russia, was received by the left-wing opposition with a banner that read “No to a homophobic president pro -Putin”.
This Thursday, the person chosen to preside over the other parliamentary seat, the Senate, was Ignazio Benito Maria LaRussaMeloni’s right-hand man and longtime leader of the Italian Social Movement, the party of the last fascists (in fact named after the dictator Mussolini).
With the election of the presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the Legislative power was constituted three weeks after the elections and shortly the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, will begin the round of consultations to create the Executive.
internal disputes
Meloni, the most voted, hopes to receive the commission to govern and has been preparing a list of ministers to propose to the president for several days, but the distribution of portfolios has caused the first setback in the coalition because Berlusconi feels slighted.
In fact, the tycoon, who has returned to the seat nine years after his expulsion from the Senate for his sentence for tax fraud, made his senators not vote for La Russa for the presidency of the Upper House to show their discomfort (although today they did vote by Fontaine).
Berlusconi has even allowed a sheet of paper to be seen before the chambers of Parliament in which he had written the alleged characteristics of his ally Meloni: “Stubborn, pushy, arrogant, offensive. You can’t agree with her.”it read in the captured image.
The three-time prime minister, an old political fox, attended the elections with his ultra allies promising to serve as a moderate part of the coalition, but he has just found that, far from that, for the moment he has been excluded from the distribution of Parliament.
In fact, he has given up placing one of his favorite paladins, Licia Ronzuolli, with whom Meloni has notorious disagreements, in any ministry.
In the last hours, some members of Forza Italia have dropped that the party will go on its own, alone, to the round of consultations at the Quirinale Palace to form a government, but Salvini has mediated and assured that the right will appear united.
Meanwhile, the center-left parties attend with a certain stupor the dawn of the Meloni legislature, surprised by the names placed in front of the parliamentary chambers.
“Worse than this even with the wildest imagination. Italy does not deserve this insult”, commented the outgoing secretary of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, second force in the hemicycle.
However, the proclamation of the new Italian Parliament has certainly been a cumbersome process. The right-wing coalition is the majority and, if Berlusconi’s grudges are resolved, it will be able to govern, that is clear, but the weight of the opposition is unknown.
Just think that when the Forza Italia senators said “no” to La Russa, 18 others from different parties came to his aid and proclaimed him, although his identity is a mystery because they supported him under the secret ballot.
In short, with the formation of the Parliament, Mattarella will now have to entrust the formation of the Government, predictably to Meloni and his right-wing allies who won the elections, something that could happen next week because there is no time to waste in the face of the economic crisis and society that crosses the country.
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