Centre-right, the Calabria test case. Here’s why the by-elections are a test
On 27–28 September, a by-election will be held to elect the Member of Parliament to replace Cannizzaro, who has been elected mayor of Reggio Calabria. The former Forza Italia group leader, who has since joined Vannacci’s party, is also standing for election.
Key points
Who would ever have thought that Calabria – a safe stronghold of Forza Italia – would become a stress test giving the centre-right cause for concern? The ‘Vannacci effect’, one of many. Because on 27 and 28 September, voters in single-member constituency 05 of the Chamber of Deputies – Reggio Calabria – are called upon to elect the MP who will replace Francesco Cannizzaro in Parliament, the Forza Italia member elected as the city’s mayor. In the past, this would have been a foregone conclusion; today, it is an initial test to see whether Futuro Nazionale can really give the majority a run for its money.
The double setback
The unexpected contender is Domenico Giannetta, who has the reassuring face of a doctor and a long political career within the ranks of Forza Italia, with whom he was re-elected to the Regional Council in 2021 with over 10,000 first-choice votes and for whom he served as group leader until the end of August, when he was selected as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies by Futuro Nazionale. This marks a double setback: his departure from the party he represented and his move to a party which, from the right, is eroding the coalition’s vote share. Giannetta, in fact, is challenging the centre-right candidate, Fabio Roscioli, who is no ordinary figure: he is the party’s national administrator, a long-standing lawyer for Fininvest and highly regarded by the Berlusconi family. Running alongside them are Frank Benedetto, representing the broad coalition, and Francesco Toscano, backed by the Democrazia Sovrana Popolare party.
Occhiuto’s anger
The extent of the rift was highlighted by the immediate reaction of the centre-right governor Roberto Occhiuto, whose words were certainly not gentle. First, he announced Giannetta’s expulsion from the regional majority, and then he thundered: ‘My regional government has nothing in common with those who support Roberto Vannacci.’ He took aim at the ‘mercenaries and traitors’ who capitalise on ‘populism’.
Stefania Craxi’s barbs
The chair of the Forza Italia senators, who is also very close to Il Cavaliere’s children, Marina and Pier Silvio, went even further in an interview with *La Repubblica* on 9 September: Vannacci – so the argument goes – “acts as a fifth column for the left in parliament, just as he did in the by-election in Reggio Calabria. From this point of view, he is similar to the AfD, which in Germany looks to the red-browns who support Sahra Wagenknecht’.
According to the general, ‘Reggio Calabria will be our Saxony’
It was the general himself who had referred to the German election in a completely different light in the pages of *Il Fatto*, proclaiming that ‘Reggio Calabria will be our Saxony-Anhalt. We’re aiming to win. Forza Italia has put forward a Roman lawyer who has never even seen the Strait, catapulted there by the Berlusconi family. We, on the other hand, have a doctor who has been involved in politics there for years and whom everyone knows’.
