The electoral result of March 4 did not bode well, and after two months of negotiations, the result confirms it: an unprecedented coalition, between two rival parties from an electoral point of view, has just been created under the pompous title of the “government of change.”
The supporters of these two parties, the most voted, even speak of the birth of the 3rd Republic! The opponents and critics, however, prefer to define this incestuous, albeit legitimate, alliance as “fascist-communist.”
In fact, while Matteo Salvini’s Lega draws inspiration from European far-right movements, the MV5’s nebulous network, a party that claims not to be one, resembles the former Communist Party, where the organizational practice of “democratic centralism” gave full power to a restricted governing group.
This is the case with this unprecedented political movement where governance is managed by a small group of people who operate in the utmost opacity and decide on internal matters thanks to the Rousseau platform (an information and exchange site)! The former Napoli football stadium steward, Luigi Di Maio, was given the role of “political leader” after an internal consultation in which about 37,000 voters clicked, and the consultation for the approval of the agreement with the Lega was clicked by 45,000. That says a lot!
The “government contract” drafted between the Five Star Movement and the League promises greater firmness against corruption, crime, and immigration. In detail, the new government plans to implement a new system for calculating the retirement age, create a “citizenship income,” a “flat tax,” and set a reduction in taxation. Above all, the executive aims to send some 500,000 migrants back home.
Experts have estimated the cost of its application at 170 billion euros, accounting for less tax revenue and more public spending.
Since neither Salvini nor Di Maio could accept that the other would take power personally, the two comrades agreed on the name of a “neutral” person, even though it was indicated by the MV5.
At 54, Giuseppe Conte, a lawyer and professor of administrative law at the University of Florence, was appointed, on Wednesday, May 23, as head of the Italian government.
“The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, received this afternoon Professor Giuseppe Conte, to whom he has given the mandate to form the government,” declared the Secretary General of the presidency, following protocol.
Giuseppe Conte will now have to compose his government, which has been the subject of intense negotiations between the M5S and the League for days. This list must then receive the approval of the Italian president, after which the government will be sworn in before presenting itself to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate to obtain their confidence.
The future President of the Council of Ministers—that is the official title—spent his youth in San Giovanni Rotondo (in Apulia), the land of Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar with the stigmata, who enjoyed popular fervor during his life and just as much suspicion from Vatican authorities, delaying his beatification and canonization—it took place in 2002—after his death in 1968.
He will need the spiritual assistance of this saint “healer” for his new task and… some miracles to save the country from the nightmare of a severe crisis and recession as the blissful optimism of the two majority stakeholders in his government suggests, whom political commentators nickname Pulcinella (Luigi Di Maio) and El Tecoppa (Matteo Salvini), two masks of popular theater (commedia dell’arte), the first Neapolitan, the other Milanese.
