Meloni government suffers two crushing defeats to the centre-left in Emilia-Romagna and Umbria

And, most importantly, the president of the Council of Ministers is losing her third consecutive vote against her centre-left challenger, the young Bolognese Ely Schlein, in less than a month. Because, as we commented in a previous article, in Liguria the centre-right led by Genoa's Marco Bucci won, but it is equally true that Schlein's PD doubled the number of votes of Meloni's Brothers of Italy: if the centre-left lost on this occasion, it was due to their internal division, which meant that they ran without part of the political centre (among them Italia Viva and ‘Piu Europa’). 

This time, however, the centre-left presented itself as a compact bloc, despite the fact that a concrete alliance has not yet been negotiated, and the consequence was not only a predictable defeat for the centre-right in Emilia-Romagna (the ‘Rossa’ region par excellence), but also the unexpected loss of the bastion of Umbria, where President Donatella Tesei, winner in November 2019, succumbed to the centre-left candidate (Proietti). 

Let's take it one step at a time. In Emilia-Romagna, thinking that the centre-right can win is the same as thinking that the centre-left can win Lombardy or Veneto: a real pipe dream. In the previous elections, an unstoppable Salvini won 43% of the vote with his candidate (Senator Luzia Borgonzoni), but, between the then unexpected ‘Sardines’ movement and the strongly left-wing tradition of Emilia-Romagna (where most of the country's communist and socialist leaders have come from), the then president Bonaccini (now an MEP, like his vice-president Schlein a member of the lower house) was able to revalidate his mandate with 50% of the vote. This time, the centre-left candidate was another, De Pascale, until then mayor of Ravenna. But despite De Pascale's low profile, the centre-right was so sure that it would not win in Emilia-Romagna that it put forward the philosopher Ugolini, of whom the only thing known was that she had been undersecretary of public education in the Monti government (2011-13). 

The result was a landslide victory for the centre-left: De Pascale, Schlein's man for these elections, won 56.77% of the vote, while the Five Star Movement was the star of its umpteenth fiasco (the 3.54% it won was surpassed by the ecologists and greens of the Green and Left Alliance, who won 5.30% of the vote). Ugolini was only able to reach 40.07% of the vote. At the national level, Schlein won 42.94% of the vote, while Meloni was left with 23.74%, meaning that the young Bolognese politician almost doubled the number of votes of her centre-right rival. 

But what was not to be expected was what happened in Umbria. Five years ago the winner, Donatella Tesei, won 57.6% of the votes, compared to 37.5% for Vincenzo Bianconi, the man chosen by the PD and Five Star to head the centre-left list. 

Tesei was running again, but this time he lost ten points of support compared to five years ago: 46.17%. By contrast, the centre-left candidate, Stefania Proietti, managed to rise to 51.13%, an increase of almost fifteen points compared to the November 2019 elections. 

And here again Schlein clearly beat Meloni: for the former, 30.23% of the vote, while the latter was left with 19.44%. And Five Star, another ridiculous performance by a party that continues to be completely blurred: 4.71%. Once again, it is clear that the Five Star Movement not only has no future, but that without a ‘citizenship income’ it is not even voted for in two traditionally left-wing strongholds such as Emilia-Romagna and Umbria. Added to this is what happened a few weeks ago in Liguria: in the three elections, Five Star has not been able, in any case, to exceed 5% of the vote (in Umbria the Democratic Party has multiplied by six the votes of Five Star). 

In Meloni's case, it is not compatible to have a risk premium of around 120 points and at the same time for the executive to enjoy popularity. Since the government presented the draft or preliminary draft of the General State Budget (PGE) on 15 October, the risk premium has only once passed the 130-point mark (on 6 November), which means that the once ‘Eurosceptic’ Meloni follows to the letter everything dictated by the ‘troika’ (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission). 

There is no transalpine government that dares to defy the EU authorities when they still have some 120 billion euros committed to the Recovery Fund. In this sense, Meloni made his classic ‘face to the gallery’ gestures, such as not voting for the current European Commission (which has made it extremely difficult for the Christian Democrat Raffaelle Fitto to achieve the vice-presidency of the Commission, despite being a proven pro-European), or supporting Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX, to lead the ‘friendly’ European right of the recently elected President Donald Trump. 

The Meloni government's growth figures are simply abysmal: in the first three quarters of the year, it has only been able to add 0.5%, compared to neighbouring Spain which, with a blocked government and no budget, has seen its Gross Domestic Product grow by 2.4%, recalling, moreover, that the European Commission has decided to revise the figure given to Spain at the time to give it up to 0.9% more, expecting the fourth largest economy in the Eurozone to grow by 3% in 2024, well above the European average of 0.8%. 

Meloni's advantage remains his large parliamentary majority, with a centre-right that will do all it can to run out the legislature after eleven years of ‘crossing the desert’. But it cannot be ruled out that, with such a low-level government, and with Fitto about to leave for the EU institutions, in the coming weeks we will see the appointment of a ‘Meloni II government’. As we say, it is still too early to reach clear conclusions, but the fact that Meloni's fall in popularity is a reality; that there is no alternative leader on the centre-right; and that this legislature, which began in October 2022, will most likely last four rather than five years, is beginning to be seen as a reality. Meloni is beginning to look more and more like his two generation mates (Renzi and Salvini), both of whom have been politically liquidated and are waiting for Roman politics to join them. It is probably only a matter of time, although in two years' time it is certain that there could be a noticeable improvement, especially if the energy problem and the rising cost of raw materials come to an end. Time will tell. 

Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a lecturer at Camilo José Cela University (UCJC) and author of the book ‘Italia, 2018-2023. De la esperanza a la desafección’ (Madrid, Liber Factory, 2023).