Rome. Anyone reading Italian newspapers at the moment might get the impression that the country is in the middle of an election campaign. The parliamentary elections aren't due until 2027 - and so far there isn't even an official date.
But then Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced that she would abolish vehicle tax for the majority of vehicles. Cost: 2.3 billion euros. “We are abolishing a hated tax,” said Meloni. A few days later she announced that the government would limit the number of foreign students in Italian classes.
The Minister of Education had been working on the plan for a long time, now Meloni, who had previously given little impetus to education policy, is making it a top priority: It is “an instrument of common sense (…) against ghetto classes,” Meloni said on Friday.
It is no coincidence that she is rediscovering domestic politics. The only thing that is certain at the moment is that there will be elections next year. Traditionally, spring elections are preferred because in August the entire country collectively goes on a month-long summer vacation. The election would have to be held in the fall, because then the five years of Meloni's term of office would have expired. But ultimately she can decide the timing herself.
If she resigns, new elections would have to be called before the fall. Meloni is deliberately playing on this uncertainty to destabilize the opposition and weaken her new far-right competitor: retired general Roberto Vannacci.
In return, the right-wing nationalist herself is moving further to the margins. She had so far spent her time in office presenting herself to the international community as a traditional conservative. Vannacci's rising poll numbers mean Meloni has shifted her priority away from her international profile.
While Meloni and her party Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) always publicly emphasize that they want to end the legislative period regularly, the rumor mill is running hot. For example, the newspaper “il Corriere della Sera” reported on Friday that Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a central figure in the FdI, had already written down a list of candidates that the party would put forward in an election at a recent meeting.
And in an interview last week, Meloni also struck a note that is already deeply rooted in election campaign logic. Speaking about Vannacci and his Futuro Nazionale (National Future) party, she said that voters knew which vote would be useful in the election: “The one for a majority capable of governing that cannot be blackmailed.”
Meloni is faced with the problem that Vannacci could endanger another victory for her right-wing coalition: While Futuro Nazionale had approval ratings of around three percent when it was founded in February of this year, these have now risen to almost eight percent.
This puts Vannacci ahead of Meloni's coalition partners, the right-wing populist Lega party (5.6 percent) and the conservative Forza Italia (7.4 percent). Meloni's FdI has also lost around two percentage points since Futuro Nazionale was founded. At around 27 percent, the party is still at the level with which it won the election four years ago.
However, Vannacci's success means that the three-party coalition's overall percentage might currently be barely enough to win the election - especially if it gets its electoral law change passed.
This was launched before Vannacci gained strength and provides for a victory bonus in order to form a stable government for the coalition, which received 42 percent of the vote. With the current majority, Meloni's coalition would be two percentage points below this limit.
Including the new far-right competitor in her coalition is not an option for Meloni: Vannacci, a retired European parliamentarian and general in the Italian military, found his way into politics in 2023 through the publication of a xenophobic and homophobic book. In this he creates himself as a defender of “common sense”, which is in danger of being lost.
Vannacci is now making a name for himself with his party because of his proximity to Putin's Russia. He also promises to implement what Meloni had once announced before she strayed from the supposedly right path in government.
Meloni would therefore not only bring a critic into the coalition, but would also undermine its credibility on its most important foreign policy promise. This is the support of Ukraine.
Pressure on Meloni could also increase from the left: If the left-wing opposition parties manage to get themselves written on the ballot paper as a joint alliance, Vannacci's votes for Meloni's coalition could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Therefore, Meloni is currently pursuing a two-pronged strategy: On the one hand, she is deliberately leaving the election date open in order to keep the opposition in the dark. In this way, she can observe whether the left-wing parties manage to agree on a common election program and a leading candidate.
Despite the parties' protestations to the contrary, it doesn't look like this at the moment. If an agreement were to be reached, Meloni could still force early elections, which would put the opposition in a time crunch.
