The League: from the budget bill’s rapporteur to the Senate group leader – all the tensions within the party

The atmosphere in the League is becoming tense. Starting with the budget. Requests have been sent to Giancarlo Giorgetti to increase the three-year pension fund allocation by 850 million, to allow retirement at 64, and to scrap the cuts to education. This pressure on the Minister for the Economy has also been channelled through the replacement of the League’s rapporteur for the budget bill. Alberto Gusmeroli (head of the party’s Economy Department and chair of the Finance Committee) has, in fact, replaced the ‘Giorgetti loyalist’ Silvana Comaroli – who also served as rapporteur two years ago – at the last minute. A move that drew sharp criticism from the opposition (“This is how Salvini is putting Giorgetti under his thumb. I find it disgraceful that the chair of another committee is putting female MPs under his thumb to settle scores within the League,” attacked Elena Bonetti of Azione).

Meanwhile, at Palazzo Madama, the showdown has begun post-Congress. With the majority of the group’s senators having signed a petition calling for the removal of the ‘rebel’ Massimiliano Romeo as group leader (the frontrunner to take his place is Marco Dreosto from Friuli), the sponsor of Massimo Garavaglia’s candidacy and leader of the northern dissidents defeated at the congress that re-elected Matteo Salvini as party leader ten days ago. Romeo has no intention of resigning and is awaiting the day of reckoning at the group’s meeting before stepping down. Among the scenarios circulating is the possibility of the Lombardy branch of the League – still led by Romeo – being placed under special administration, in order to send an even clearer signal against the leader of those challenging Salvini’s leadership, in tandem with the governor Attilio Fontana.

Garavaglia greeted the showdown with “regret”: “Clearly,” he argued, “there is no desire to unite, as I thought had emerged from the party conference”, but rather to “widen the rift between positions within the party”. His entry into the Lega’s executive committee is now more difficult. Following Salvini’s overture, as conveyed in Bruno Vespa’s book (“if Garavaglia agrees, he will join the executive committee”), whilst awaiting the formalisation of the proposal, the former Minister for Tourism had in fact made his possible acceptance conditional on the resolution of internal tensions. The former Doge Luca Zaia would be willing to accept Salvini’s invitation to join the team. However, there have been no reports of recent official contact between the two. Among the frontrunners are the outgoing deputy secretaries Claudio Durigon and Silvia Sardone,, and the parliamentary group leader in the Chamber of Deputies Maurizio Molinari. However, the profile of the nine members of the new body sought by the League leader to ‘expand the team’ remains a mystery.

So much so that no official announcements are expected at the Federal Council meeting convened this afternoon in Milan (the first since the party conference). It is likely that Salvini will take more time. Instead, the focus will be on routine appointments, such as the head of local authorities and the treasurer (it looks set to be Alberto Di Rubba), as well as the new appointment of the federal coordinator of the regional secretariats, for which the name Andrea Crippa is being mentioned. Also on the Federal Council’s agenda are the key issues of the budget, differentiated autonomy and approval of the new party symbol (“Lega Italia federale” to replace “Lega per Salvini premier”).