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Italy’s new coalition gets the go-ahead from Five Star members

Members of Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S) on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted in favour of forming a government with the centre-left, pulling the country back from the brink of snap elections.

Published: 3 September 2019 15:40 CEST
Updated: 3 September 2019 20:50 CEST
Italy's new coalition gets the go-ahead from Five Star members
The Five Star Movement's Rousseau voting platform is touted as 'digital democracy'. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Party leader Luigi Di Maio said that around 80 percent of M5S members voted 'yes' to backing a M5S-Democratic Party (PD) government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. 

“We should be proud of this digital platform… because we offered a different method for creating a government,” Di Maio told journalists in Rome. “The political programme is complete, now we move to the government composition.”

The vote was carried out on the movement's Rousseau online platform, an exercise in the anti-establishment party's much-vaunted “digital democracy”. Nearly 80,000 people voted. 

'Rousseau roulette'

Di Maio said that M5S and PD had agreed a 20-point government programme, but that it would take 24 to 48 hours to present the new ministerial line-up to President Sergio Mattarella for approval. 

M5S leaders had launched an appeal for members to support the coalition, which is being thrashed out after hard-right leader Matteo Salvini pulled the plug on the previous government.

“This is a delicate moment for the country,” M5S said of what Italian media dubbed “Rousseau roulette”.

“For us, a mandate from citizens is a serious matter, it lasts five years, as laid out in the constitution, so that a government programme can be carried out,” read the M5S blog.

READ ALSO: How the rebel Five Star Movement joined Italy's establishment

Luigi Di Maio (C), leader of the Five Star Movement. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The M5S joined an ill-fated coalition with Salvini's League 18 months ago, but anti-migrant Salvini hoped for fresh elections that would make him premier when he tried to bring down the government last month. Instead, M5S is forming a new administration with its former foes from the PD. 

“Italians found themselves in a crisis because of an irresponsible move by Matteo Salvini,” former ally Di Maio said on Tuesday after the vote result was announced. “If you make a mistake, you apologize. How will he [Salvini] be able to complain about a government that he could have been part of?”

Salvini took to Facebook soon after the vote result to say: “We as the League are proud to stay out of this cattle market.”

READ ALSO: How Matteo Salvini lost his gamble to become Italy's PM – for now

A negative vote would have spelt the end of talks with the PD and prompted the snap elections sought by Salvini. 

Di Maio has been criticized in recent days for procrastinating on the deal, including by M5S co-founder and comic Beppe Grillo. But on Monday he agreed that he would no longer be deputy prime minister in the new government, provided no PD politician held the position either. Instead, Di Maio has been mooted as a possible foreign minister.

“Now let's go and change Italy,” PD leader Nicola Zingaretti said on Facebook after the vote result. 

'Playing with democracy'

M5S foes have been quick to criticise the Rousseau system, which has previously been slammed as secretive and vulnerable to cyber attacks.

“This is an insult to Italians' institutions, constitution and intelligence,” said Mariastella Gelmini of tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia. 

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Rousseau

The platform is managed by Davide Casaleggio, whose father Gianroberto founded the Movement along with Grillo. Critics say the Casaleggio family has been pulling political strings from behind the scenes from the start.

Former constitutional court judge Sabino Cassese wrote in the Corriere della Sera daily that is was paradoxical for perhaps 60,000 people out of a potential 100,000 to be given the potential power of contradicting the 11 million Italians who voted for M5S in March 2018.

“When will the M5S's political leader stop playing with democracy?” Cassese wrote.

By AFP's Charles Onians

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POLITICS

How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

There's been renewed debate over the state of press freedom in Italy following warnings that Meloni's administration is seeking "control" of Italy's media. But what's behind these reports?

Published: 9 April 2024 13:13 CEST
How much control does Giorgia Meloni's government have over Italian media?

Press freedom is at the centre of fresh debate in Italy this week after Spanish newspaper El País on Saturday published an article titled “Meloni wants all the media power in Italy.”

The report, which was picked up by Italian newspaper La Repubblica, suggests that the Italian prime minister and her right-wing executive is looking to “monopolise” national print and broadcast outlets

It follows reports in English-language media recently describing how Meloni is accused of trying to stamp her authority on Italian arts and media in what critics call a “purge” of dissenting voices.

Meloni and members of her administration have long faced accusations of trying to silence journalists and intimidate detractors. Media organisations say this often takes the form of high-profile politicians bringing lawsuits against individual journalists, and cite the defamation case brought by Meloni against anti-mafia reporter Roberto Saviano in 2023 as a prime example.

READ ALSO: Six things to know about the state of press freedom in Italy

Discussions over media independence aren’t new in Italy, as the country has consistently ranked poorly in the annual Press Freedom reports by Reporters without Borders in recent years. Italy came in 41st out of 180 in the 2023 ranking, which made it the worst country in western Europe for press freedom.

But what’s behind the recent allegations that the government is trying to exert a more direct influence?

Meloni, Porta a Porta

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Italian national TV show Porta a Porta in Rome on April 4th 2024. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

National television

The article from El País accuses Meloni’s cabinet of effectively controlling Italy’s two biggest national broadcasters: state-owned RAI and commercial broadcaster Mediaset.

While Mediaset and its three main channels (Rete 4, Canale 5 and Italia 1) have long been seen as ‘loyal’ to Meloni’s executive – the network was founded by the late Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party continues to be a key member of the ruling coalition – the government’s ties with public broadcaster RAI are more complex.

Unlike state-owned broadcasters in other European countries, RAI is not controlled by a regulatory body but rather by the government itself, which means that the network has always been particularly susceptible to political influences. 

But Meloni’s cabinet is accused of exerting unprecedented power over the broadcaster following the replacement of former top executives with figures considered closer to the government.

Salvini, RAI

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini speaks with Italian journalist Bruno Vespa during the talk show Porta a Porta, broadcast on Italian channel Rai 1. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Last May, Carlo Fuortes resigned as RAI’s CEO saying that he couldn’t possibly “accept changes opposed to RAI’s interests”. He was replaced by centrist Roberto Sergio, who in turn appointed Giampaolo Rossi – a “loyalist” of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party – as the network’s general director. 

Sergio and Rossi’s appointment was closely followed by a general management reshuffle which saw figures close to the government occupy key positions within the company. This led to critics and journalists dubbing the network ‘TeleMeloni’.

Print media 

Besides concerns over its sway on Italy’s main broadcast networks, Meloni’s executive is currently under heavy scrutiny following the rumoured takeover of Italy’s AGI news agency by the right-wing Angelucci publishing group. 

The group is headed by Antonio Angelucci, an MP for Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League party, and owner of three right-wing newspapers: Il Giornale, Libero and Il Tempo.

News of the potential takeover from Angelucci sparked a series of strikes and demonstrations from the news agency’s journalists in recent weeks, with reporters raising concerns over the independence and autonomy of journalists in the event of an ownership change.

The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party Elly Schlein weighed in on the matter last week, saying that the sale of Italy’s second-largest news agency to a ruling coalition MP would be “inadmissible”.

Further debate over press freedom in the country emerged in early March after three journalists from the left-wing Domani newspaper were accused of illegally accessing and publishing private data regarding a number of high-profile people, including Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s girlfriend. 

The newspaper has so far condemned the investigation, saying it is “a warning to Domani and all journalists” and a further threat to media independence in a country ranked amongst the worst in Europe for press freedom.

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