A phone call can extend life, as in the famous TIM commercial, or it can try to secure a majority. A political threat, spoken without beating around the bush, in an attempt to avoid disaster. It was not enough. Giorgia Meloni – it reads in the Corriere della Sera – had gathered the deputy prime ministers on Monday in a quick call to send a very clear message: in case of jokes about the amendment that reintroduced preferences in the electoral law, she would “send everyone to vote.” A warning that, when tested in the Chamber, proved useless.
The result was a real earthquake in the center-right. The amendment was sunk by the snipers and, immediately after the verdict, a hunt for the responsible party worthy of a parliamentary thriller took place in Montecitorio. Antonio Tajani runs his hands through his hair. Francesco Lollobrigida, with a gloomy look, simply says: “Now I’m going to find out who the snipers are, talk to you later.” Luca Ciriani captures the mood with a cutting phrase: “The instinct of self-preservation won.”
While the opposition celebrates shouting “Resignations, resignations. Go home, go home,” suspicions begin to fly within the majority parties. The Corriere reports the existence of a private chat of about twenty deputies from Forza Italia, not aligned with Tajani, in which the “no” front had been monitored for days. A detail that fuels suspicions about the Azzurri, although some League members also come under scrutiny. The Meloni supporters reject all accusations. “No Badoglio among us,” they assure.
And the deputy Luca Sbardella even reveals the trick adopted to avoid errors during the vote: “Many of us even voted only with the index finger, raising the thumb up, so that by putting the index finger inside the slot of the bench, it would only be possible to choose yes because the finger cannot reach the two buttons, the abstention one and the no one.” Meanwhile, the count of the “traitors” is taking shape. According to various reconstructions, at least about <strongthirty votes were missing in the center-right. And that preventive phone call from the premier, which was supposed to avoid the showdown, today takes on the flavor of a sensational prophecy.
