The Roggero case and the ‘Vannaccised’ majority. Competition or signs of collusion?

Mario Roggero: the glue holding the majority together or a bone of contention? A battleground on the right or a link with Roberto Vannacci with a view to future alliances? The institutional blunder that came to light yesterday – with the’launch of the preliminary inquiry into a pardon for the 72-year-old jeweller who was definitively sentenced by the Court of Cassation to 14 years and 9 months’ imprisonment, as decided by the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio , and the subsequent summons of the minister to the Quirinale – confirm, in any case, the ‘Vannaccisation’ of the majority.

It has not gone unnoticed that the petition calling on the Ministry of Justice to initiate the process for a pardon was launched by the group leaders in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of Fdi, Forza Italia, Lega, Noi Moderati, Civici d’Italia, Udc and Maie-Centro Popolare on the very day of Montecitorio’s green light for the new electoral law. The endorsement of Nordio’s move and that of the group leaders came directly from Giorgia Meloni. A way to try to put behind them the clashes over the preferences chapter and to present a united front on the key issue of security, repeatedly highlighted by the Prime Minister as a government priority. This is also to counter the challenge posed by the general and his party, Futuro Nazionale.

Salvini’s move

The first to call for a pardon was, on Wednesday, immediately after the verdict was handed down, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini, who has always been convinced that Roggero acted in self-defence (a defence expanded following the campaign launched in 2019, when Salvini was Minister of the Interior, so as not to make culpable excess punishable), a line of argument that was, however, refuted by the judges at all three levels of the court system, including the Supreme Court. The League’s secretary spoke of an ‘unjust conviction’ and made an appeal via social media directly to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella.

Roggero, long a symbol of the right-wing’s security campaigns, had been mentioned in Vannacci’s book *Il mondo al contrario* and became a social media star partly thanks to frequent references to him on the programme *La Zanzara* hosted by Giuseppe Cruciani. These references culminated in the show organised in late June for the jeweller and the ‘other victims of crime’ by Vannacci, with Cruciani himself on stage at the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza, where the leader of Futuro Nazionale and the journalist displayed a T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘We are all Mario Roggero’.