The vote on the Brothers of Italy amendment on the preferences of the electoral law was accompanied by an almost military setup: one-on-one checks, the invitation to vote by inserting only the index finger into the slot with the keypad and not the whole hand to better show one’s yes. In that way, in fact, the “no” and “abstention” buttons become “unreachable.” All in vain: the government was defeated, to the (rude) joy of the opposition and the anger of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Everything happened in the Chamber in those minutes. Fingers pointed at the 31 snipers of the majority. First of all, the women of Lega and Forza Italia. Suspicions also on the Vannacci deputies. To dispel the shadows, they decided to record a video of their vote. Heaven opened: “An investigation should be opened by the presidency council to identify the authors of a serious violation of the regulations and an insult to this chamber, this is not horseplay, who were they supposed to show how they voted to, here we are at the level of vote trading. What happened is unacceptable, we ask for prompt intervention from the President of the Chamber Fontana. This is the parliament of the Republic and these things belong to the Banana Republic,” accused the Democrat Federico Fornaro.
Meanwhile, Francesco Lollobrigida had already activated. The Minister of Agriculture and FdI bigwig had started hunting the snipers: “I’m going to look for them.” Then he explained to journalists: “I don’t see it as something organized in a military way, I think it’s more of a pinpoint thing.” On possible consequences for the majority’s stability “we’ll see when the time comes.”
Read more Electoral law, «I’ll find them»: snipers, Lollobrigida’s hunt begins | Libero Quotidiano.it
Also Galeazzo Bignami, FdI group leader, takes stock of the situation: “I don’t allow myself to poke my nose into others’ business. If there was a lack of trustworthiness, we wouldn’t have asked to proceed. I saw some majority colleagues who chose to vote differently, some in a blatant way others in secret. Some that we saw blatantly, get the list of who was there before, who was there after, and who was in between. I don’t name names. The majority was there on previous secret votes, remember that the majority cannot avoid secret votes. We literally saw some colleagues who ostentatiously did not vote.” “We have 5 absentees, I would say – he then explained – almost all from the government except Tremonti. I don’t think anything can be blamed on the Brothers of Italy group, absences like Roccella, as you know, Cirielli who was landing, the Prime Minister who was not expected to come, Rampelli who was presiding… let’s say objectively we were there. I believe I can stake my life, maybe even both hands, that FdI voted as it had committed to do, that is in favor of preferences. It was important for us. We took the responsibility to bring it to a vote because it is a commitment we made to the voters. Others who say they want preferences didn’t even present an amendment, others who say they want them asked for a secret vote, we say we want them, we brought the amendment, asked to bring it to an open vote and we voted for it. Italians will form an opinion on who does not allow them to indicate their own parliamentarians on the ballot. We heard some celebrate preferences and then vote against, where is the consistency?”.
