Salvini on Vannacci: an ingrate, his place in the EU is the League's. The general's reply: he is the traitor

'Salvini has shown himself to be inclusive and correct, with a view to perfect hospitality, whereby the aim is to make the guest feel like a prince, but this correctness has not been repaid. Along the way,' added the former president of the Veneto Region, 'we found ourselves having to respond to continuous provocations and also to statements that were not at all in line with the Lega thought as it had already been publicly expressed. There was premeditation'. As to whether Vannacci should resign from the European Parliament, Zaia said: 'He is there thanks to the votes of the Lega, he was elected with our symbol and with the tam tam of a party that has real militants, but I repeat: what a leader he has. It will serve us as a lesson'.

'To think of using not a political force but voters as a taxi, and then get out when it suits you, I think it is debasing for everyone'. The president of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Massimiliano Fedriga, was harsh in reference to Roberto Vannacci's departure from the League. 'One can legitimately change one's mind,' Fedriga told reporters in Trieste, 'and he has evidently changed it. But just as dutifully he should resign from the post he held through those ideas and through those voters, not out of respect for the League, but out of respect for Italian citizens and Italian voters'. Speaking of Matteo Salvini's reactions, Fedriga added: 'There is obviously a betrayer and a traitor. I am always on the side of loyal people, not those who betray'.

Along the same lines, i.e. the one that sees Vannacci's departure not as a blow to the party but as an opportunity to resume the race of consensus, is Armando Siri, head of the League's departments, who in an interview with La Repubblica confided: 'Many militants feel betrayed by someone who was voted to represent them and who decides to leave the party for an adventure that is probably more egotistical than political. But this abandonment offers us the opportunity to reconnect with many thousands of voters who, precisely because of dissonance with the tone and grammar used, had decided to move away'. As for how many parliamentarians might leave the League to follow him, according to Siri it is 'perhaps a couple' while 'many others instead, even in the territories, who initially and in good faith supported him, are pulling back. Betrayal in politics is never a good omen. But I think not even in the army. Imagine a leader who one moment is wearing the uniform of his homeland and the next moment he has made his own uniform and his own homeland and asks you to follow him'.

"Roberto Vannacci's exit from the League does not represent a problem for the centre-right government, but if anything it contributes to clarifying and making the alliance that now leads the country even more homogeneous,'' he said. This was stated by Raffaele Nevi, national spokesman of Forza Italia, speaking to Rainews24. "In recent years, the centre-right has demonstrated strong cohesion in government action and substantial unity on major issues, from foreign policy to security, from the economy to reforms. Greater political clarity strengthens this alliance, not weakens it. Forza Italia is not interested in short-lived operations or in chasing extreme positioning. Our project is clear: a governing, pro-European, Atlanticist centre-right founded on a solid liberal culture. Those who share the values, principles and programmes of the reformist centre-right are of course free to engage in dialogue. But the strength of our coalition lies precisely in having maintained a responsible and consistent line, far from radical drifts that do not belong to our history. The difference with the centre-left is clear: on the one hand a compact and credible alliance, on the other a divided camp, crossed by deep contradictions and political distances that are difficult to reconcile,' he concludes.

"The mud machine has started. For days, the mud machine has been running at full speed. But to those who have really been in the mud, this dirty water slips all over them." Early in the morning, Roberto Vannacci in a post on Instagram relaunches a publication from yesterday on his social network. In the post, alongside the text, appears a photo of the general shirtless and in military clothing, his boots covered in mud. "Roberto Vannacci is a very good politician and we are his fans, let's see what will happen," notes Esn's group leader in the European Parliament, AfD MEP René Aust, meanwhile, responding to a question about the general's possible entry into his political family.

The split of the League with the descent of the Futuro Nazionale list led by Roberto Vannacci has an effect on the electoral picture. This is what emerges from the survey carried out by YouTrend for Sky TG24. In this first survey,' it reads, 'the list would stand at 4.2 per cent, just above the national threshold even in the event of an increase from 3 per cent to 4 per cent. The general takes more away from Fdi (23%) than from the League (18%), but also collects from others, undecided and abstainers. From the point of view of voting intentions, the poll's analysis goes on to say, the introduction of the Vannacci list would entail an erosion of consensus mainly on the right: Fratelli d'Italia (-1.1%) and Lega (-0.9%) are the parties that register the most evident losses, while Forza Italia suffers a more contained impact (-0.2%). On the other hand, no significant effect emerges on the centre-left and centrist forces, whose consensus remains substantially stable. The analysis of electoral flows clarifies the nature of the new list: slightly less than half of the voters of the Vannacci list come from the area of the parliamentary right (Fratelli d'Italia and Lega), but a relevant share comes from minor formations, from the extra-parliamentary sovereignist area (among others, Italia Sovrana e Popolare of Marco Rizzo and Alternativa Popolare of Stefano Bandecchi). A minority share of Futuro Nazionale voters would also come from voters who were previously among the abstainers and undecided (13.5% of the new list's total). Overall, the data suggest that at this early stage Vannacci's list might emerge more as a factor of redistribution within the right-wing area and as a channel for mobilising peripheral or misaligned voters. However, Vannacci's personal and political profile appears highly polarising. Among those who know him, non-trust far exceeds trust (53% vs. 14%), with a clear political segmentation: relatively more positive judgements among voters of Fratelli d'Italia, Forza Italia and Lega, and almost total levels of distrust among voters of the Democratic Party and the Green-Left Alliance. Also very relevant is the quota of centre-right voters who suspend judgement, taking refuge in 'don't know': as many as 48% of Lega voters take this position, underlining the fluidity of opinions on the figure of Vannacci at this moment of conflict with the Salvini establishment.