All of Italy Is Waiting for Salvini to Decide on Snap Vote

(Bloomberg) -- Pressured by his closest advisers to force a snap election, Matteo Salvini is hesitating.

The usually hyper-active deputy premier is keeping the country waiting as he considers whether to take his biggest political gamble yet and pull out of Italy’s fractious populist coalition.

The leader of the rightist League is looking to capitalize on his victory in May’s European parliamentary vote, banking on early general elections in the fall as the best way to deliver him the premier’s job.

After months of skirmishes with coalition partner and rival Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Movement, Salvini has never been so close to bringing the government down, according to a senior adviser, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. Most of Salvini’s lieutenants want an early vote, the adviser said.

Salvini has denounced Five Star for backing Ursula von der Leyen as new European Commission president and for blocking his priority reforms including tax cuts and stronger powers for regions in his northern stronghold. The League leader on Friday skipped both a cabinet meeting and government talks on regional autonomy.

But Salvini also stuck to his usual script in saying that he’ll continue with the coalition if his favored measures are enacted into law.

“We’re working on projects and on things which have to be done, not on jobs for the boys,” Salvini said, after news wire Ansa cited unidentified lawmakers as saying that a cabinet reshuffle could avert a full government collapse.

Salvini said Friday that he’ll “certainly” meet with Di Maio, who earlier in the day called for the two party leaders to sit down together and talk.

“The problem isn’t Di Maio,” Salvini said, “But the policy of ‘no,’ and many people within Five Star blocking things.”

One person Salvini is keeping in the dark: President Sergio Mattarella, who wants any new government to be in place by October, ready to deal with the 2020 budget, according to an official who asked not to named discussing confidential plans. If Mattarella meets with Salvini next week, it could signal that the government is coming to an end, said the official.

If Salvini does go for broke, the race to prepare next year’s budget will be a tight one -- with the European Commission pressuring Italy to reduce its debt. From the moment parliament is dissolved, some 60 to 70 days would have to pass before the actual vote, meaning that an election can’t be held before September.

Surveys show the League is still the most powerful force in the country, with no effect so far from reports that a close associate of Salvini’s allegedly sought illegal party funding in Moscow. Salvini, who has denied receiving any Russian money, believes Di Maio’s party has been trying to exploit the so-called Russiagate scandal for political gains, the adviser said.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will speak on the Russia case in parliament on July 24. Salvini may address lawmakers after him in a speech from the League’s benches which may either signal a pacification or a breakup with the other half of the ruling coalition, Corriere della Sera reported on Saturday.

The League’s support was at 35.9% in an Ipsos poll conducted July 16-18, which is more than twice what the party won in the March 2018 general elections and up from 33.3% in a survey by the same pollster last month. Support for Five Star was little changed from the previous poll at 17.4% and down from 32.7% in last year’s elections.

In the European parliamentary vote in late May the League won 34.3% and the Five Star 17.1%.

Di Maio himself, who could face another drubbing after the European ballot, struggled to put on a brave face on Friday. “I rule out that there could be a crisis, these are the dynamics of a government made up of two different forces,” he told Rai state television.

Di Maio’s Five Star could now support the nomination of the League’s Giulia Bongiorno, who is the Public Administration Minister, for a seat in the new EU Commission after cabinet undersecretary and Salvini’s close ally Giancarlo Giorgetti renounced the commission role, La Stampa reported on Saturday.

To contact the reporters on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net;Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, Jerrold Colten, Dan Liefgreen

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