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Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini is facing an open revolt against his leadership of the far-right Lega party after he named a homophobic, pro-Russian firebrand as the leading candidate in the upcoming European elections.
Discontent within the league, particularly in its traditional stronghold in Italy’s wealthy north, has grown in recent months as Salvini lost the support of much of the party’s base to arch-conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
But that simmering anger boiled over last week when Salvini personally appointed controversial Italian army general Roberto Vannacci – recently suspended from active duty over an inflammatory book he published – to lead the League’s list of candidates for June’s EU parliamentary election.
Many dissatisfied League members have defected in recent years, both to Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party and to the more centrist Forza Italia, founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi. This trend is likely to intensify after Salvini’s latest move.
“Salvini is an egotist,” said Milan-based businessman Paolo Grimoldi, a former League MP until 2022. “Everyone has understood that we have no political future with him.” We are not getting any more votes and are heading towards an election pretty quickly – and political disaster. But he doesn’t want to resign.”
Amid the turmoil, party founder Umberto Bossi made a rare public appearance last month to call for a new leader and a political reset to prevent the league from losing support among voters.
“Salvini is in serious trouble,” said Daniele Albertazzi, an expert on Italian politics at the University of Surrey. “They’re basically shooting at him from every direction.”
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Polls show Forza Italia may overtake the League in the June vote, while Meloni remains the undisputed star of the Italian right and leader of a three-party coalition with Forza and the League.
“Berlusconi is a better leader from heaven than Salvini from earth,” Grimoldi said. “Salvini has a coherence and credibility problem.”
Meloni’s political roots lie in a neo-fascist movement, but she has turned to the center in recent years to increase her electoral appeal. Salvini has responded to their rise by trying to outflank them on the far right – and he has doubled down on that strategy by naming Vannacci, a polarizing culture warrior, as his party’s top candidate.
A former member of an elite paratrooper unit, Vannacci was Rome’s military attaché in Moscow when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After his return to Italy this year, the general published a highly controversial book criticizing Western liberalism entitled “The World Is Upside Down.”
In it he describes the LGBT+ community as “abnormal”, calls feminists “modern witches”, complains that a black star athlete doesn’t “look Italian” and praises the charm of Putin’s Russia. The Defense Ministry suspended him for 11 months for misconduct related to the book.
More recently, he also referred to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as “a statesman” and advocated for children with disabilities to be educated separately from other students.
Longtime League members such as Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti have openly expressed dismay that the party is moving further away from its historic agenda of fiscal federalism, cutting taxes and red tape.
“You can’t be an alternative to Meloni by going to the extreme right,” Grimoldi said. “My political party was born to talk about taxes, less government and more freedom, not to be allied with it [politicians] who think children with disabilities shouldn’t be allowed to go to school.”
Salvini, a compulsive and astute social media user and unabashed Putin admirer, has led the league since 2013 and has transformed it from a pro-business regional movement in the north of the country into a right-wing populist party.
He relentlessly lashed out at what he describes as the scourge of illegal immigration, leading the League to a landslide victory in the 2019 EU elections, when it won 34 percent of the vote. But since then his star has waned.
Shortly after the last EU elections, Salvini withdrew his party’s support for a three-party coalition, hoping to trigger an early vote for the Italian parliament, capitalize on his popularity and seize power. He announced his decision from a beach resort, wearing swimming trunks and holding a mojito.
But his gambit backfired as the president refused to call a snap election, and when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was tasked with leading the country through the crisis.
In the 2022 parliamentary elections, many conservative voters were won over by Meloni, who, unlike Salvini, has pledged unwavering support for Ukraine after Russia’s all-out invasion and appears to be a more serious politician overall. In that vote, which resulted in the current coalition government, Meloni’s party won 26 percent, while the Lega fell to under 9 percent.
“He made some massive mistakes. . . He has no credibility even with right-wing voters,” said Albertazzi.
Salvini is fighting for his political survival ahead of a Lega party congress he has promised in the fall, where disgruntled party loyalists will almost certainly try to oust him.
If his party falls “below 10 percent” in the June elections and falls behind Forza Italia, “it will become clear that it is a party without a goal,” Albertazzi said. “It’s an existential matter.”