When Matteo Salvini campaigns for regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, he does it his way. Toning and muscular. Tuesday evening, accompanied by police officers ensuring his protection, the former Italian Interior Minister landed at Pilastro, a popular suburb of Bologna, and rang the intercom of a house. "Excuse me, I am told that it is from your home that the drug trafficking starts in the city, is it true or is it a mistake?" "Balance cash, under the eye of the cameras around him, the leader of the Lega (the League, far right).
It is a septuagenarian living in the neighborhood, marked by a family drama linked to drugs, who passed the pipe on the alleged dealers to the former strongman of the government, delighted to replay his favorite role of sheriff. That evening, he will not stop anyone, will have to turn gown under the hoots of young bellowing “Salvini vaffa…” (Salvini will make you…) and the choirs of the older singing “Bella ciao”, the anthem of the antifascists in this campaign under high tension.
The poll on Sunday 26 January may be local - Calabria will also vote - it is a national test. In Rome, the ruling coalition between the moribund 5-star movement (M5S, populist on the left) and the ultra-minority Democratic Party (PD, center left) in the country seems to be most fragile.
If he wins in the historic left fief of Emilia-Romagna, which would be a political earthquake, Matteo Salvini, who has already pocketed several regions, will go to see Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the Palazzo Chigi - Roman Matignon - for give him, he said, a "notice of eviction". And demand the holding of early legislative elections.
"A land bathed in the blood of those who resist fascism"
The far-right leader did not digest his ouster from the government last summer, due to his own gross error in political tactics and a reversal of alliance of the M5S in favor of the PD, the former party of Matteo Renzi - the Italian "Macron".
But the game promises to be tight, the latest polls (banned since mid-January) giving outgoing president PD Stefano Bonaccini and League senator Lucia Borgonzoni, her rival, shoulder to shoulder. "Salvini claims that he wants to free Emilie from the yoke of the left!" Let him be careful with this word of liberation: here, this is a land bathed in the blood of the resistance fighters of Mussolini's fascism ”, takes offense Giorgio, 61, retired health prevention officer,“ militant of the left not radical ”.
The region is one of the richest on the peninsula, with its "motor-valley" cradle of prestigious car manufacturers (Ferrari, Lamborghini ...), its prosperous family SMEs, its generous local public health policy, its promotion of schools of early childhood in a country where everything often rests on "mamma" at home…
"We are a model for Europe"
“There is regional pride, we are a model for Europe, why change a winning team? Asked Fausta, 28, a bank worker. "So Salvini and his puppet Lucia, whom he doesn't even let speak for fear of his blunders (Editor's note: she touted" the region of the two seas ", while Emilie borders only one, the Adriatic) , play on fears: fear of migrants, fear of insecurity, of all that is different, "denounces Fausta, calling to" revival "his fellow citizens of electoral abstentionism.
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The Lega also bet on people's weariness with politicians locked in their Ivory Tower. “They only take an interest in us at the time of the elections, plagues Gaetano, 24, an unemployed worker who goes on training. All the places are taken by foreigners, our elected officials are at the orders of Brussels! The captain (Editor's note: nickname Matteo Salvini), he comes to see us, he listens to us and defends us against those who want to enter our house. Gaetano will be voting for the first time on Sunday.
