Meloni for President?

Italy’s opposition parties are scrambling to block what they see as a power grab by Giorgia Meloni, which they fear could pave the way for her to become president.

The prime minister is pushing a reform of the electoral system that would give bonus seats to whichever coalition won the most votes, so as to guarantee a stable majority.

The opposition says the policy will favour the three-party conservative coalition led by Ms Meloni.

Opposition parties fear that if she is re-elected, Ms Meloni will try to install a loyalist as the next president of Italy – or even seek to become president herself.

Sergio Mattarella, the current president, is due to step down in 2029.

The nightmare scenario for the opposition is that Ms Meloni wins the next election, which must be held by autumn next year, and then, halfway through her term as prime minister, decides to go for the top job herself.

“If the new election law is passed, whoever wins next year will have a guaranteed majority, and could then elect the next president in 2029. Meloni could put herself forward as a candidate for the presidency even if she was prime minister,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of politics at Luiss University in Rome.

“It would be awkward, but possible. She was elected Italy’s first female prime minister – maybe she wants to be Italy’s first female president as well. But we don’t know her intentions.”

Italian presidents serve seven-year terms, and there is no limit to how long they can stay in the job. Ms Meloni is just 49, which means she could have decades of political life ahead of her.

“If the geopolitical or the economic situation is bad for Italy, and Meloni is having a hard time as prime minister, she might be tempted to go for the presidency – it’s an easier job,” Prof D’Alimonte told The Telegraph.

The opposition’s fears that Ms Meloni might have ambitions to become head of state were stoked this week when she said it was no longer “taboo” to conceive of a Right-winger becoming president.

“It was thought that nothing could change, yet the things that could change have changed,” she said, in apparent reference to her dismal electoral prospects just a few years ago, when her Brothers of Italy party was on just 3 per cent of the vote.

“So, given that everything has changed, no one has said that this cannot change too: that this other great taboo – having a president of the Republic who is not from the centre-Left – cannot be overcome either.

“It would be terrible news for a certain part of the establishment, but it would affirm something very simple – that those who aren’t on the Left aren’t the children of a lesser god. But Italians will decide.”

The last three presidents of Italy, including the incumbent, Mr Mattarella, have hailed from the centre-Left.

Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister and the head of a small centre-Left party, said that Ms Meloni had “finally shown her cards” in referring to the presidency. “She wants the Quirinale either for herself or for someone loyal to her,” he said.

That was echoed by Francesco Boccia, a senior member of the centre-Left Democratic Party, when he was asked whether he thought Ms Meloni coveted the presidency. “If not for herself, then certainly for someone else,” he said.

Elly Schlein, the leader of the Democratic Party, said Ms Meloni’s ambition was “to become president”, adding that this was “another good reason to try to stop the electoral reform in every way possible”.

“In a country where there’s a shortage of 70,000 nurses, in a country where the waiting list for a gastroscopy can be a year and a half, Giorgia Meloni’s priority is the electoral law, it’s power, it’s the Quirinale.”

The president of Italy lives in a former papal palace called the Quirinale, the name of which is used as shorthand in Italy for the presidency, just as “No.10” refers to Britain’s prime minister.

Ms Meloni hopes that the new electoral law, which is being discussed in parliament, will be approved by the lower house before the summer holidays. It will then pass to the senate, the upper house, in the autumn.

The prime minister has argued that there are no Machiavellian motives behind the reform, saying that it will benefit whichever side of the political divide gets the most votes. Nor has she ever publicly said that she wants to be president.

“It does not favour anyone, apart from Italians, in the sense that Italians choose who wins… Whoever wins will have the numbers to govern,” she said.

But the opposition are not convinced, and see the electoral reform as another opportunity to attack the prime minister, after she suffered a bruising defeat on a proposal for judicial reform in March.

“In theory, the new electoral law could benefit the Left, if they get more votes at the next election. But they don’t want to appear to be compromising in any shape or form. They want to be seen as contrary to the government,” said Prof D’Alimonte.