Piazza Don Bosco in Potenza is not crowded, thanks to the unforgiving weather, the centre-right leaders after the group photo and before singing Mameli’s anthem all together take turns on stage to support the outgoing Vito Bardi and to reiterate that the alliance is united. “We will govern until the end of the legislature, Schlein and Conte rest their minds”, says the leader of the League Salvini while the secretary of Fi Tajani claims that “the broad field is the centre-right” in reference to the support also of the centrists of the opposition to the candidate of the governing coalition in Basilicata.
Ma the hardest attack on the left comes from Prime Minister Meloni. “The Banana Republic is over where the prevaricators always get away with it and the left can tear its clothes as much as it likes, I don’t care how much it tears its clothes I know they are on the right path”, says the Prime Minister. The prime minister responds to the attacks on abortion, on the issue of defamation and on the criticisms that have rained down during this year of government: “Don’t believe the fake news, they say we argue but in the morning we laugh at those reconstructions, they try to stir up discord to slow down government action. The only way to measure the compactness of a government is to evaluate the speed with which it manages to work, and in a year and a half we have done much more than what the left-wing governments held together with the scotch,” he notes.
“We have become the world capital of fake news”, the ‘refrain’. “Italy, despite being in an explosive situation, is doing better than other European countries. It is no longer at the bottom, our choices have worked”, the claim.
“The left should not be moral about taxes and healthcare. Taxes are not a beautiful thing, but they are necessary. I want a friendly tax system and a state that does not oppress”, claims the Prime Minister. Who then counterattacks: “I want to express my solidarity with the police for the attacks suffered in the universities, given that no exponent of the centre-left has done so, evidently because they sympathize more with those who attack them”.
Ma It is above all on the theme of autonomy that Meloni wants to overturn the narrative: “The presupposition of differentiated autonomy is the identification of the Leps. It is not taken away from the regions to give to others, it gives the ruling class responsibility. It does not surprise me that those who rail “against autonomy” are those who they have the worst parameters. Other than abandoning the South, whoever says that has the wrong interlocutor. I believe in a South that wants to demonstrate its value.” And again: “Imagine if I, who believe in a united Italy more than anything else, leave half of Italy behind. There has been a gap and we are the ones who are fighting it. I reject the idea of a Southern Italy that asks for welfare. I think that there are two ways of combating the divide in the South: there is the citizen’s income method and there is the citizenship infrastructure method”.
Meloni goes straight: “As long as the Italian people ask me, I will not spare myself. In this year – he underlines – I physically could not have attempted to work more. We don’t do it for the party but we do it for you, on Sunday what We’re asking you whether it’s worth continuing to do so.”