FILE — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, right, shares a word with Italian Minister for Youth Giorgia Meloni prior to a group photo of G8 and G5 leaders at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy on Thursday, July 9, 2009. With God, homeland and “natural” family prominent in her political manifesto, Giorgia Meloni, whose Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party with neo-fascist roots has been fast rising in popularity in view of the upcoming Sept. 25 elections for Parliament, is positioning herself to become Italy’s first far-right premier and the first woman to hold that office. (AP Photo/Stefano Rellandini, Pool)
The readout aimed to halt a slew of negative headlines about perceived fractures in the center-right coalition before formal consultations on forming a new Italian government begin, which are expected later this week.
Brothers of Italy’s Leader Giorgia Meloni attends the center-right coalition closing rally in Rome Thursday, Sep. 22, 2022. Italians vote on Sunday for a new Parliament, and they could elect their first far-right premier of the post-war era. If opinion polls hold, Giorgia Meloni could be that premier, as well as become the first woman to lead an Italian government. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
The Brothers of Italy, which has its roots in a neo-fascist movement, won 26% of the vote in Italy’s Sept. 25 general election, the most of any party. It is poised to lead a right-wing government along with the center-right Forza Italia, which took 8%, and Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League party, which snared 9%.
Meloni, a former militant in the neofascist Italian Social Movement, is expected to be Italy’s first female premier.
FILE – Silvio Berlusconi, leader of center-right, populist Forza Italia is flanked by his partner Marta Fascina, after casting his ballot at a polling station in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022, in Milan, Italy. Just in time to celebrate his 86th birthday, Italy’s former premier Silvio Berlusconi is making his return to Italy’s parliament, winning a seat in the Senate nearly a decade after being banned from public office over a tax fraud conviction. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
Tensions flared last week over the division of Cabinet posts, most spectacularly when Berlusconi scrawled a list of derogatory adjectives about Meloni on stationary in plain view of photographers covering Thursday’s election of the Senate president: “Presumptuous, bossy, arrogant, offensive.”
After images of the notes went viral, Meloni shot back that Berlusconi had forgotten one: “That I’m not blackmail-able.”
FILE – From left, The League’s Matteo Salvini, Forza Italia’s Silvio Berlusconi, and Brothers of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni attend the final rally of the center-right coalition in central Rome, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Just in time to celebrate his 86th birthday, Italy’s former premier Silvio Berlusconi is making his return to Italy’s parliament, winning a seat in the Senate nearly a decade after being banned from public office over a tax fraud conviction.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
It was a reference to an apparent Berlusconi power play that had failed. Most Forza Italia senators didn’t vote for Meloni’s candidate for Senate president, Ignazio La Russa, depriving him of a full victory. The stunt backfired, though, when La Russa sailed through and won on the first ballot anyway with the apparent votes of the opposition. The outcome suggested Meloni had outmaneuvered Berlusconi and thwarted his show of force as he sought to place a loyalist in her future Cabinet.
FILE – Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, left, and Youth policies Minister Giorgia Meloni meet supporters during a People of Freedom party meeting in Rome, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010. Riding high in voter opinion surveys for weeks now, Meloni might become Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. Italy will elect a new Parliament on Sept. 25. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
The tensions betrayed obvious policy differences between the two but also underscored something of a generational power shift within the Italian right. Berlusconi, an 86-year-old three-time premier, has seen Forza Italia’s star fade in recent years and has been forced to cede the political limelight and leadership to the next generation in Meloni, 45, who was youth minister in Berlusconi’s final 2008-2011 government.
“The votes for La Russa from the minority show that the adversaries aren’t just divided,” wrote analyst Massimo Franco in this weekend’s Corriere della Sera. “They make clear that the power of Forza Italia to influence the leader of Brothers of Italy has reached conspicuous limits.”
FILE – Italian former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, right, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talk during a press conference at Villa Gernetto, in Gerno, near Milan, Italy, Monday April 26, 2010. Just in time to celebrate his 86th birthday, Italy’s former premier Silvio Berlusconi is making his return to Italy’s parliament, winning a seat in the Senate nearly a decade after being banned from public office over a tax fraud conviction. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, file)
Franco said the big question is whether the coalition can survive the tensions longer term.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella speaks at the Quirinale Presidential palace in Rome, Thursday, July 21, 2022. Italy’s president says he has dissolved Parliament after Premier Mario Draghi’s coalition fell apart. No date was set for a new election, but President Sergio Mattarella said it must be held within 70 days under Italy’s Constitution. Mattarella said he decided on early elections because the lack of support for Draghi also indicated there was no possibility of forming another government that could carry a majority of lawmakers. (Giuseppe Lami, Pool Photo via AP)
After Monday’s meeting, both parties vowed to present themselves as a united front during the consultations with President Sergio Mattarella, who is expected to ask Meloni to try to form a government. The two parties said that, along with allies in the League, they were already “at work to give Italy a strong, cohesive and high-profile government as soon as possible.”
