"Between Melons e Berlusconi it's all a mess, which will end up in tarallucci and wine. Berlusconi defines Giorgia Meloni as opinionated, overbearing and arrogant: if she were consistent, she would have to prevent the birth of the Government” but it will not happen because “the call of power is too strong”. Who speaks, in an interview with the press and then with Sky, is the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, who adds: "We will see what they will do, but if they jump we will be ready" but "we will never vote for a government led by Meloni", if instead "there is a Draghi government we, Calenda and I, will vote in favor of the government Draghi".
But it's really recomposable it rift between Berlusconi and Meloni? Maybe. It will certainly be a working weekend for Gianni Letta and for Anthony Tajani, the two most authoritative and most governing exponents of Forza Italia. They will try in every way to convince Berlusconi to round off the corners, hoping that Meloni appreciates it. In the next few hours we will understand better but to date there are basically three scenarios.
Three hypotheses: Berlusconi in Canossa and birth of the Meloni government 70%; Forza Italia splits 20%; Technical government 10%
The most probable hypothesis is that Berlusconi goes to Canossa or, as he always does to deny even what is not deniable, says that it is just a big misunderstanding and that there is no rift with Meloni: in this case the tensions would subside and the Meloni Government would have the road paved at the end of the consultations which will begin this week at Quirinal. This assumption has at least a 70% chance of coming true.
The second hypothesis is that, out of pique and despite the different opinion of his family, Berlusconi is stubborn in No to Meloni but in this case the Brothers of Italy and the League would not have a majority in either the Chamber or the Senate. At this point, before giving up a government battle that seemed already won after the unequivocal result of the elections on 25 September, it is probable that Meloni and Salvini will leverage the governing wing of Forza Italia, led by Antonio Tajani, to vote for trust in the nascent Executive, even at the cost of a sensational divorce from Berlusconi, who in fact fears seeing the party which he founded thirty years ago and in which he has always been the undisputed dominus. This second hypothesis is credited with a 20% probability.
The third hypothesis, somewhat overshadowed also by Renzi, is that, faced with the impossibility of the centre-right to form a government that gathers the majority both in the Chamber and in the Senate, the President of the Republic calls again Mario Draghi (or a other high-profile institutional figure) to form a government with a mainly technical profile that will avoid Italy from a power vacuum in a very difficult moment due to both the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the economic and energy emergency: probability 10 %
No to new elections but floating majorities
Be that as it may, and pending the political developments of the next few hours, there are two certainties right now: the first is that, despite Meloni's hints at the possibility of returning to vote to scare Berlusconi and Forza Italia, it is entirely unlikely that a President always very attentive to the institutional stability of the country as Sergio Mattarella resign yourself to calling new elections a few weeks after the vote of 25 September. What figure would Italy make in the eyes of the world?
The second certainty is that, in any case, even the new legislature seems destined to have unstable government majorities because the center-right is anything but cohesive and, after the 2024 European elections, this could open up new scenarios that were unthinkable until a few days ago .