With his everyman appeal and social media savvy, Matteo Salvini’s popularity has soared since he became a key figure in Italy’s unsteady coalition government 14 months ago. But the pugnacious leader of the rightwing League party now faces an array of critics who claim he has over-reached.
Since pulling the plug on the government three weeks ago, his plan to capitalize on his lead in the polls by forcing fresh elections has backfired after other parties unexpectedly united to block his power grab.
If the Democratic party and the Five Star cement their new partnership under prime minister Giuseppe Conte — which could yet fall apart — Mr. Salvini would be relegated to the sidelines.
He claims to have no regrets. “It’s better that you win with your political scheming today and we win the hearts and minds of Italians tomorrow,” he said in a Facebook video on Thursday.
But his opponents say he is a victim of his own hubris. “There is no
doubt that he was drunk on power,” former prime minister Matteo Renzi of the centre-left PD told the Financial Times. “Until a month ago [he] seemed invincible but now he is in a corner.”
The League insists that Mr. Salvini did not make a mistake and that this manoeuvring will pay off in the end when the new coalition falls apart. They “have nothing in common, there is no trust”, said League MP Edoardo Ziello. “The other parties will disappear after a year or two but sooner or later the Italian people will vote.”
A poll on Thursday found that 32 percent of Italians intended to vote for the League. Mr. Salvini is still lauded in some quarters as the man who made the League a contender in mainstream Italian politics, garnering 34 percent of the vote in European elections in May. “Until August he never put a foot wrong,” says Giovanni Orsina, professor of politics at the University of Luiss, Rome.
His first mistake was timing. He should have called for elections after the European polls, analysts say. Instead, by waiting, he set the country on course for autumn elections during the budget season for the first time in 100 years.
