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Why Berlusconi's death makes Meloni stronger

2023-06-13 23:22:26Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA HANNAH ROBERTS
Why Berlusconi's death makes Meloni stronger
Silvio Berlusconi and Giorgia Meloni

Hannah Roberts – Politico.eu

Italy's first female Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni achieved great success thanks to Silvio Berlusconi. Now he is gone and she is waiting to take advantage once again

When she arrives at Milan's Gothic Duomo cathedral for Silvio Berlusconi's state funeral on Wednesday, Giorgia Meloni will be among the prominent mourners.

The very fact that Meloni is Italy's first woman to hold the office of prime minister owes much to the influence of Berlusconi himself.

He gave Meloni her first major job in front-line politics, appointing her the youngest government minister in Italian history at the age of 31 in 2008.

Then last year, he was instrumental in the downfall of Mario Draghi's prime ministership, calling a right-wing meeting over a luncheon at his luxury villa, where they plotted to topple the government.

And again after Draghi's departure, it was Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, a moderate centre-right movement, that joined Meloni's far-right group in a coalition deal that brought the latter to power.

But in addition to being Meloni's useful partner in the "business" of winning power, Berlusconi offered a brand of politics that she has now made her own. And as "brother and sister" who were in politics, the "two members" of the right-wing family often fought fiercely with each other.

First, their personal leadership styles were cut from the same humble cloth. They can both be dishonest to the point of rudeness.

On election day last September, Meloni posted a video of himself holding two melons in front of his chest. It was a joke that the leader of the "Bunga Bunga" party would be proud of.

Like Berlusconi, Meloni's political method emphasizes the centrality of the leader as an individual "who speaks the language of the common people," said Berlusconi biographer Giovanni Orsina.

Both leaders try to address the immediate demands of ordinary people "without telling them what they should want," said Orsina, a professor at Luiss University in Rome. "The leader does not project himself better than his followers, he or she is one of us."

Meloni's offer to voters in last year's Italian elections "was a very Berlusconi program," Orsina said.

Both leaders had the ability to shape the public debate, through traditional channels or social media.

Berlusconi's Mediaset television channels allowed him to dominate the national conversation while in power for a decade. The same channels also provided the right environment for the wave of right-wing populism that allowed Meloni to flourish, although it was conceived for commercial gain rather than political design.

By bringing Meloni's "Brothers of Italy" from post-fascist predecessors to form a right-wing coalition in 1994, Berlusconi had prepared the conditions for her group to enter the mainstream. "Without Berlusconi, there would be no Meloni," Vittorio Sgarbi, undersecretary for culture and former minister in Berlusconi's governments, told POLITICO.

Meanwhile, having the moderate center-right "Forza Italia" in Meloni's current coalition helped the latter to give the extreme right (the force she led) a layer of respectability, making it and Italy itself acceptable. in Europe and the USA.

Rivals and allies

Despite the parallels, this was not a relationship without tensions. Meloni split from Berlusconi's party in 2012, a break that later led to the creation of the "Brothers of Italy" party.

In 2016, Berlusconi opposed Meloni when she ran for mayor of Rome, on the grounds that she was pregnant. Meloni never forgot this.

In a 2017 interview with the weekly magazine Tempi, he said he had "always admired Giorgia's determination, competence, intellectual courage and analytical skills".

But he expected her to see him as a wiser statesman, from whom she would seek advice. But as Meloni stood up, she refused to show him the required respect. The two have quarreled quite a bit.

He also liked to play the role of favourite, inviting, for example, Matteo Salvini to his recent wedding while ignoring Meloni.

She meanwhile appeared on one of his channels saying that she "owes nothing to Berlusconi". After that, he reduced her television appearances

On election day last year, Berlusconi was caught on video saying he was "a little" scared of her.

Meloni, at the age of 46, took over the leadership of the center-right without the help of the old man.

Her party won 26 percent of the vote in the last election, while Berlusconi's 8 percent.

Berlusconi seemed to have difficulty accepting this, and the formation of the centre-right government led by Meloni was divided.

He shamed her with outbursts expressing his support for Putin. In return, she allocated mostly secondary-level ministries to his party and denied posts to some of his favourites.

During the negotiations, Berlusconi was photographed with a piece of paper in which he had written about Meloni that she was "dominant, arrogant and offensive".

Even within the coalition, "Forza Italia" has opposed a number of government measures.

Now, Berlusconi's death has the potential to strengthen Meloni. Because the future of "Forza Italia" without its founding leader is uncertain.

While Meloni is seen as much more right-wing than Berlusconi, the group of voters they competed for is the same. Many supporters of Berlusconi's Forza Italia moved to Meloni's Brothers of Italy last year. "Centre-right voters in Italy share a set of fundamental values ​​on most issues and worldview," according to Lorenzo Pregliasco of polling agency YouTrend. "They identified the strongest leadership in that area and voted for the one who was able to express it best: Berlusconi for 20 years, then Salvini, then Meloni."

Salvini's League party is doing poorly in the polls. Within European politics, Forza Italia is a member of the EPP group. Meloni's EU grouping, the ECR, could ally with the EPP in next year's European Parliament elections.

In his latest interview last week, Berlusconi gave his blessing to an alliance between the EPP and the ECR.

During Berlusconi's first term as prime minister in the 1990s, Meloni was just a teenager learning far-right politics with a group of radical friends in Rome.

It has grown into a populist leadership that likes to be seen as a fighter.

But, like Berlusconi, she is willing to make deals for the sake of power.

In a tribute video released after his death, she said: “With him, Italy learned never to set limits for itself. He learned never to assume that he was defeated." In this case, she may have been talking about herself.


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