Salvini's failure brings respite for embattled Italian government

Matteo Salvini’s failure to overturn decades of leftwing rule in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna will bring some respite to the embattled national government, staving off the risk of snap elections.

The leader of the far-right League campaigned vigorously across the region in his attempt to use elections on Sunday as a platform for his return to power. But a high turnout ensured the Democratic party (PD), which rules nationally alongside the Five Star Movement (M5S), maintained control.

The party’s incumbent candidate, Stefano Bonaccini, won 51.4% of the vote compared with 43.7% for Lucia Borgonzoni, who was backed by the League and its allies.

Salvini’s coalition, made up of the smaller far-right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, did secure a resounding victory in a separate election in the less symbolic southern region of Calabria, with the group’s candidate taking more than 50% of the vote and removing the PD from office there. Despite the loss in Calabria and brutal defeats for M5S in both regions, a rejuvenated Nicola Zingaretti, who leads the PD, said “the ruling majority comes out [of the regional elections] stronger”.

But whether it can last the course largely hinges on the ability of M5S, the senior partner, to reinvent itself. M5S has lost half of its support since winning the biggest share of the vote in general elections in March 2018, and its failed alliance with the League and subsequent tie-up with the PD has cost the party more than 20 MPs. Luigi Di Maio stepped down as leader last week amid the turmoil, with the M5S senator Vito Crimi taking the helm temporarily until a party conference in March.

“The government may be stronger today, but the weak spot is M5S,” said Mattia Diletti, a politics professor at Rome’s Sapienza University. “On the one hand, M5S will try and keep it together as they don’t want to lose their jobs but at the same time they need to find a way to convince people to vote for them, as if they remain weak this will be a problem [for the coalition]. At the same time, the PD should be smart enough to realise they’ve just won the battle, not the war.”

The coalition, which did not compete together in Emilia-Romagna due to a dismal performance in Umbria in October, faces more threats from Salvini’s close-knit group in elections later this year in the leftwing-led regions of Tuscany, Le Marche, Puglia and Campania. After winning eight out of nine Italian regions over the last two years, Salvini said on Monday his group was “playing to win” the upcoming battles.

The PD and M5S reluctantly came together in September after Salvini’s unsuccessful attempt to force snap elections, and their main objective for staying together is to keep the League, which has maintained a steady lead in national polls, out of power.

“I don’t think we’ll have general elections in 2020 but let’s see what happens in the next round of regional elections,” said Diletti. “As for Salvini, if he stays in opposition for too long without winning any more local elections then he’ll become ineffective as his main strength is in gaining consensus.”

Constant sparring has hindered the government’s progress on devising policy and it is unlikely that the PD’s win in Emilia-Romagna will make it more effective.

“The PD’s stated plan to ‘reinvigorate’ the action of the government by embracing a new agenda is unlikely to succeed,” Wolfango Piccoli, the co-president of the London-based research company Teneo Holdings, wrote in a note. “The M5S will be internally torn, at the very least, until its planned congress in March.”