EuropeAnalysis

Out of his League: Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini faces open revolt

Deputy prime minister and leader of League party under pressure after picking homophobic, pro-Russia candidate for European elections

Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has lost support among large parts of the League party’s base to prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images
Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has lost support among large parts of the League party’s base to prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images

Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini is facing an open revolt against his leadership of the far-right League party after he picked a homophobic, pro-Russia firebrand as top candidate for the upcoming European elections.

Discontent within the League party, especially in its traditional stronghold in Italy’s prosperous north, has been growing in recent months as Salvini lost support among large parts of the party’s base to arch-conservative prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

But that simmering anger boiled over last week when Salvini handpicked controversial Italian army general Roberto Vannacci – who was recently suspended from active duty over an inflammatory book he published – to lead the League’s list of candidates for the EU parliamentary election in June.

Many discontented League members have been defecting over the past few years, both to Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party and the more centrist Forza Italia founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi. That trend is likely to accelerate after Salvini’s latest move.

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“Salvini is an egoist,” said Milan-based businessman Paolo Grimoldi, a former League MP until 2022. “Everybody has understood that with him, we don’t have a political future. We are not getting votes any more and we are heading pretty fast towards an electoral and political disaster. But he doesn’t want to resign.”

Matteo Salvini handpicked controversial Italian army general Roberto Vannacci  to lead the League’s list of candidates for the EU parliamentary election in June. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte /AFP via Getty Images
Matteo Salvini handpicked controversial Italian army general Roberto Vannacci to lead the League’s list of candidates for the EU parliamentary election in June. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte /AFP via Getty Images

Reflecting the turmoil, party founder Umberto Bossi made a rare public appearance last month to call for a new leader and a political reset to stop the League from haemorrhaging support among voters.

“Salvini is in trouble, serious trouble,” said Daniele Albertazzi, an Italian politics expert at the University of Surrey. “They are basically shooting at him from all directions.”

Polls show Forza Italia neck-and-neck with and potentially overtaking the League in the June vote, while Meloni remains the undisputed star of the Italian right and leader of a three-party coalition with Forza and the League.

“Berlusconi is a better leader from the heavens than Salvini is from the Earth,” said Grimoldi. “Salvini has a problem of coherence and credibility.”

Meloni’s political roots lie in a neo-fascist movement, but she has tacked to the centre in the past couple of years to widen her electoral appeal. Salvini has responded to her ascent by trying to outflank her on the extreme right – and he has doubled down on that strategy by naming Vannacci, a polarising culture warrior, as his party’s lead candidate.

Matteo Salvini and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
Matteo Salvini and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images

A former member of an elite paratrooper unit, Vannacci was Rome’s military attache to Moscow when Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After returning to Italy that year, the general published a highly controversial book criticising western liberalism, called The World Upside Down.

In it, he describes the LGBT+ community as “abnormal”, calls feminists “modern witches”, complains that a star black athlete doesn’t “look Italian” and extols the charms of Putin’s Russia. The defence ministry suspended him for 11 months for misconduct in connection with the book.

More recently he has also described ascist dictator Benito Mussolini as “a statesman” and advocated that children with disabilities be educated separately from other students.

Long-time League members, such as minister for finance Giancarlo Giorgetti, have expressed dismay as the party drifts further from its historical agenda of fiscal federalism, cutting taxes and red tape.

“You cannot be an alternative to Meloni by going to the extreme right,” said Grimoldi. “My political party was born to talk about taxes, less state and more freedom, not to be allied with [politicians] who think kids with disabilities shouldn’t be allowed to go to school.”

Meloni’s radical plan: rewriting Italy’s post-fascist constitutionOpens in new window ]

A compulsive and savvy social media user and an unabashed Putin admirer, Salvini has led the League since 2013, reorienting it from a business-friendly regional movement in the north of the country into a far-right populist party.

Incessantly lashing out at what he describes as the scourge of illegal immigration, he led the League to a stunning victory in the 2019 EU elections, when it clinched 34 per cent of the vote. But his star has been on the wane ever since.

Shortly after the last EU elections Salvini withdrew his party’s support for a three-way coalition, hoping to trigger a snap vote for the Italian parliament, capitalise on his popularity and sweep into power. He announced his decision from a beach resort, wearing swimming trunks and clutching a Mojito.

But his gambit backfired as the president refused to call early elections and, once the Covid-19 pandemic hit, former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi was tapped to steer the country through the crisis.

By the 2022 general elections, many conservative voters had been won over by Meloni, who, unlike Salvini, has pledged unwavering support for Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion and has overall come across as a more serious politician. In that vote which led to the current coalition government, Meloni’s party won 26 per cent, while the League dropped to below 9 per cent.

“He has made some massive mistakes ... he has no credibility even among right-wing voters,” Albertazzi said.

Salvini is battling for his political survival, in advance of a League party congress he has promised for the autumn, when disgruntled party stalwarts will almost certainly make a push to oust him.

If, in the June elections, his party drops “below 10 per cent” and behind Forza Italia, “it will become obvious that this is a party without a purpose”, Albertazzi said. “It’s an existential matter.”

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024