Italy’s Brothers Giorgia Meloni and the centre-right won the regional elections by storm. A clear victory for governors who have clearly outstripped their rivals, never discussed with coalition candidates. The Prime Minister could not have expected a better outcome: the Brothers of Italy are the first party in both Lombardy and Lazio, but the much-feared collapse of Salvini’s League in Lombardy did not happen. The transport minister’s party – despite being about eight points away from Meloni’s – is holding up significantly, and also cuts the distance in terms of policies compared to the prime minister’s party, given the good result of governor Fontana’s list. Therefore, this conclusion should also prevent a new and more frequent fibrillation in the majority of the government, in these hours shaken by Silvio Berlusconi’s statements about Zelensky.

Participation alert: part of country has no faith in politics

There is a premise that needs to be made regarding the election result: There is a part of the country – the majority – where politics do not speak. This is a large section of citizens who do not believe in the ruling class and probably have no hope for the future. So far, low turnout is not an isolated case: it has been happening in every election round for years. We saw this manifest in the last administrative elections, in which less than 50% of those eligible to vote for the election of the Mayor of Rome voted, and in the last general elections in September, where only 63% of Italians voted. And this is a question that questions all parties, as well as the sure-winner governors. Because if the majority of citizens cannot participate in democratic life, the problem concerns everyone. Whoever wins the election wins.

The government sighed

Therefore, the majority of the government is still on a full honeymoon with the country. According to commentators and observers, Giorgia Meloni’s mistakes in managing oil prices or the European “disorders” in Brussels have not currently affected his direct engagement with the electorate. Currently – and it must be admitted – Giorgia Meloni is the only leader recognized by Italians. Obviously, his great fortune is that he also has no adversaries: no party today seems in a position to offer a credible and alternative leadership to that of the prime minister.

no opposition

Another decision comes out of the polls in the regional elections: There is no opposition to the Meloni government in Italy. And this is a big problem. This is the case in every democracy, and even more so in Italy, because today the creation of a credible alternative to the centre-right majority seems more like a mirage than a concrete hypothesis. Even the famous “campo-largo”—that strange coalition that some persistent democratic leaders longed for—would not be enough for the center-right to triumph.

The Democratic Party, which now seems to live in its own parallel reality, an upside-down reality of an endless congress that seems a distant echo even to its constituents, is comforting itself by defining itself in the words of its outgoing secretary, Enrico Letta. – as the “first party of the opposition”. According to Letta, the Democratic Party therefore affirmed its centrality in the center-left field in a moment of storm, rejecting the onslaught of the 5 Star Movement and rejecting the third pole that they wanted to steal that centrality from the Democratic Party. to place them as the central axis of future opposition to the Meloni government.

And there is something clearly true in Enrico Letta’s words. If all centre-left bones come out of this election round broken, M5S and the third pole will be the first losers of these regional ones. Giuseppe Conte’s “party” actually risks falling below 10% in Lazio and practically nonexistent in Lombardy, where it is nailed to 4%. For a party that wants to lead the opposition, this is more than a disappointment. One result that should have prompted (former) Grillini to ask themselves some questions goes beyond the usual “justifications” of the M5S performing poorly because it “went alone” in local elections.

Even more disturbing, the situation of the third pole in both Lazio and Lombardy is not only far from the fateful even number, but even below 5%. The sum of Action and Italia Viva seems to lead nowhere, the outcome of these choices can only raise uncomfortable questions about the future of this project. Does the construction site of the only reformist party still make sense? Does the project that Calenda and Renzi so crave has its own political space? Or was it the myriad lifeboats created to transport a defeated ruling group from one legislature to the next?