Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini do not have a great relationship.
Both come from diametrically opposed political and geographical traditions and personal contact has never served as glue.
But both politicians, main forces of the coalition led by the extreme right that has won the Italian elections, have learned to live together and respect each other.
The electoral law, which rewards the coalitions formed before the elections, greased a relationship of a somewhat heterodox nature.
The problem is that Salvini's dismal result (8.9% of the votes compared to 26% for Meloni) can now cause a situation of tension that will hinder the birth of the new Executive.
On Wednesday, both leaders met for more than an hour to iron out the rough edges that have already begun to emerge on account of the future list of ministers.
The balance of forces had worked in the coalition until Salvini lost the leadership.
The excellent result of Meloni is, in part, the result of the looting of votes that Brothers of Italy has practiced in northern Italy.
A territory where the old Northern League was always strong, which now sees how a Roman party - they sang that "Rome, thief" - has eaten the electorate.
They have done so badly that the party's founder, 81-year-old Umberto Bossi, was initially left out of Parliament for the first time in his political life (he later asked for a recount and managed to save his skin).
The barons of the north begin to demand that Salvini go back to basics and obtain results for the regions that made him secretary general of the party long before he decided to transform it into a national electoral artifact.
And now he will have to please them.
On Tuesday the federal council met at the party's headquarters in Milan.
The situation started tense.
Two of the leading barons in the formation had asked for the secretary's head.
Salvini, according to some sources, reproached some of the members that they had been the ones who had pushed him to be part of the Draghi Government, a participation that caused the electoral erosion.
They agreed, as a truce, to sign a document claiming a weighty ministry for the still leader.
This request was expressly addressed to Meloni, who does not see with good eyes that Salvini occupies a sensitive portfolio as Interior, precisely the one he covets.
Mattarella's dilemma
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who already had to deal with the leader of the League during the first Government of the last legislature, would also prefer not to cross paths with Salvini again.
The dilemma now is whether he would be calmer in the Council of Ministers or outside of it, where he would be forced to make some internal opposition from the coalition.
At the end of Wednesday's meeting, both parties published a note to calm things down.
"The meeting, the first after the victory of the right-wing coalition in the elections, has taken place in a climate of great collaboration and unity of intentions," reads a joint note published after the meeting, held in the Chamber of Deputies. Deputies.
Meloni wants a government away from populist fanfare.
His team has thought of some technical names for key portfolios.
Also for the Interior that Salvini claims.
And one of the possibilities to avoid problems with him is that the future Executive return to the model of the first Conte Government, that is, that the figure of the vice presidents of the Council of Ministers be recovered.
In this way, the coalition partners could be satisfied and Salvini would occupy one of those positions, whose executive relevance is practically nil.
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