If the conclusion of the federal council in person on June 10 was an official note in which the League focused on enhancing administrators “appreciated in all territories,” the outcome of the “territories’ control room” convened last night by Matteo Salvini relaunches “autonomy as a strategic priority from North to South.”
In summary: the model of the national League, desired by the League secretary, was confirmed. After all, among the administrators gathered, in addition to the governors of the North, Attilio Fontana, Massimiliano Fedriga, the former president of Veneto Luca Zaia, now president of the regional council, ministers Giancarlo Giorgetti and Roberto Calderoli, there were also mayors and administrators from the center-south.
Some news agencies speak of discontent among the governors because the “northern” turn, the return to origins, did not happen and the CDU-CSU model is no longer discussed. But, beyond what Salvini dismisses sharply as “journalistic squabbles,” it is a fact that the League leader, deputy prime minister and head of the MIT, over the weekend relaunched broadly to put back on track a debate that was sliding into a certain media narrative as a sort of refrain centered on the alleged decline of his leadership, with a League pursued, if not overtaken, by Roberto Vanancci.
Salvini not only reiterated that he remains secretary for another three years, according to the mandate given to him by last year’s congress, where he was confirmed by acclamation after no one stepped forward to challenge him, but he also relaunched the League’s action on current issues, starting from the Housing Plan, the international political agenda, taking the debate out of the somewhat psychoanalytical self-referential straits of who we are and where we are going.
Reuniting the party and reversing the negative trend in the polls. It is with this objective that Salvini opened the work of the League’s Territorial Coordination Table shortly before 7 pm. The work, lasting about an hour and a half and defined by a “concrete and constructive” approach, focused on security, health, support for families, and autonomy, “considered a strategic priority from North to South, on which to continue with determination,” wrote the League at the end of the meeting in a note signed by the Head of Local Authorities, Stefano Locatelli.
“This is an important table, there are no internal situations and I am not passionate about journalistic squabbles,” Salvini had commented in the morning, “there is a budget adjustment with billions to invest, there is the ongoing Housing Plan, there are ‘very small’ (said ironically ed) discussion problems with the greatest power in the world, the United States of America, there is the security issue, there is autonomy, there are municipalities and regions that are rightly angry with Europe that wants to cut funds for agriculture and cohesion funds. So there are plenty of discussion topics on which mayors, presidents of provinces and governors can discuss.”
But the first move for the full relaunch of the party started in Milan, where Salvini launched the League primaries for the mayoral candidate after 15 years of left-wing government. A breath of fresh air came from the polling stations last weekend: the voters – the League reports – were about 10,000 and Matteo Salvini received over 5,000 preferences, becoming the most elected, followed by MEP and deputy secretary Silvia Sardone. “A great pride,” Salvini commented, who however ruled out the possibility of a run for Palazzo Marino: “I am serving as minister and I intend to continue as minister. Silvia Sardone is absolutely an important resource.”
The MEP says that “the coalition will decide the candidate. I would be honored to be, but it is certainly not these polling stations that decide, the leaders will have to decide at a coalition table.”
The President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, who denies press rumors that he organized a summit in Rome to discuss the future candidate with the regional coordinators of the center-right, comments on the result of the League’s polling stations emphasizing that “the League did this thing that I liked, but the only thing that came out clearly is that in first, second and third place there are three politicians, so I think the idea of the civic candidate, at least in the League, is not going so strong. The important thing is that by July we have clear ideas and put a candidate on the track.”
Regardless of who will be the center-right candidate, it is clear that the Milanese League primaries at the polling stations mainly marked Salvini’s first move for the relaunch of the party and his own leadership also in the internal debate, now brought back to the themes of the political agenda and the League’s external initiative.
