Between journalistic allegations devoid of sources, sketches of political maneuvers, judicial shadows and conspiratorial denunciations, the Rome of power is offering itself a summer political-media crisis while the rest of the country remains frozen in the torpor of the month of August. The exchanges of arms continued, Monday August 19, between the majority of the president of the council Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d'Italia, national conservative party) and representatives of the opposition accused, with a part of the judiciary, of playing the game of an antidemocratic conspiracy targeting the government through the elder sister of the head of the executive, Arianna Meloni. Very close to the president of the council, the latter is also a senior executive of her party.
Between the Meloni sisters, the question of the boundaries separating family relations and political relationships has never ceased to arise since the majority dominated by the extreme right took office. Arianna Meloni, political secretary in charge of memberships of Fratelli d'Italia, married to a government heavyweight – the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida – is, in fact, considered by the latter to be one of the few people trusted by the President of the Council. The debate was relaunched in mid-August by two unsourced articles attributing to her an undue political role in appointments falling within the competence of the executive.
First, the daily routine He does it every day reported – without source or proof – a restricted meeting during which Arianna Meloni allegedly influenced the retention in office of political allies within the Italian public broadcaster, RAI. An article by The Republic then insinuated that she could have had a say in the selection of a possible future CEO of Trenitalia, the passenger subsidiary of the state-owned railway group Ferrovie dello Stato – at the heart of a controversy linked to the exceptional delays recorded this summer on the peninsula's lines.
This was enough for the former prime minister, senator and president of the centrist opposition party Italia Viva (IV), Matteo Renzi, who is trying to play his card within a hypothetical alliance of opponents of the Meloni government, to seize the case. In a post on the social network X, the latter, relying on the uncertain conclusions of these press articles, accused Fratelli d'Italia of being the party of the “parentocracy”. IV parliamentarians also demanded clarifications on the two cases, provoking furious reactions from the majority. A senator from Fratelli d'Italia, Paola Mancini, thus described Mr Renzi as “failed provincial godfather”.
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Source: Lemonde
