Early voting, in the centre-right the game is open but the snipe is in the hands of Meloni

Officially, what Giorgia Meloni has repeated on recent public occasions applies: we arrive in October 2027, the natural expiration of the legislature. But very few believe it. Because the date that has been bouncing around for weeks between Palazzo Chigi and the Transatlantic is another: spring 2027. With a possible range that goes from April to June.

The party of "legislaturists" includes above all allies Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini. The former explicitly probed his MPs at a Forza Italia meeting last week. The answer was almost unanimous: continue until the end. The Azzurri are in full transition towards the liberal and rights-conscious force that Marina Berlusconi dreams of. Tajani's leadership is not openly questioned, even if there is an increasingly critical front that goes from the governor of Calabria, Roberto Occhiuto, to the minister for the PA Paolo Zangrillo. The victory in Calabria over the candidate from Vannaccia did not completely extinguish fears of an erosion of votes in the territories. And the appeal of the Euro-Atlantic moderates in a coalition increasingly shifted to the right risks being further tarnished in an electoral campaign that promises to be no holds barred.

In the Northern League the concerns are even greater. The League is the political force that in the polls is paying the most for Vannacci's entry into the field with Futuro Nazionale. Salvini knows that a close vote would show a party stuck at around 8%, distant from the 34% of the 2019 European elections. Going to the polls now would mean crystallizing the downsizing and losing bargaining power in the formation of the lists, especially in the North where competition from Fdi has become direct.

The only party that would seem to present itself with almost the same attractiveness as in 2022 is Fratelli d'Italia, left floating in the polls at around 28%, the undisputed first party. Thanks to the Prime Minister's personal popularity and the announcements with which she is punctuating this very complicated moment, from farewell to car tax to the price cap on fuel from oil companies sought and obtained with her moral suasion.

The final choice will be up to you, once the obstacle of the final secret vote on the new electoral law has been overcome on 8 October. The balance is tipped in favor of the early polls in the spring due to a combination of factors: the exhaustion of the Government's reform drive with the end of the Pnrr, the renunciation of the premiership and the autonomy emptied of the Consulta; an economy threatened by very dark clouds, with inflation and energy shocks requiring timely choices to protect families and businesses and public finances not allowing room for manoeuvre; no prospect of a short-term resolution of the many international crises, on the contrary. All thorns that lead the prime minister to think she can capitalize on the consensus before the wear and tear of power and the most divisive games wear out the coalition.