Covid and the moral question remove Salvini from Zaia (which is now growing in the polls)

After Covid and the management of the lockdown, the moral question has also arisen to deepen the furrow that separates Matteo Salvini and Luca Zaia. A political and human distance always carefully kept under track, but which, as the months go by, risks leading to open conflict. Not today, of course. Because, exactly 37 days before the regional elections, it would make no sense and would not benefit anyone. But, perhaps, in the autumn, when the Doge – as his parents call him – will take over for the third time to himself at the helm of the Veneto. At that point, who knows, even someone not at all accustomed to public controversy like Zaia might decide to take a few pebbles off his shoes. Especially after the tensions of the last few days.
But let’s go in order. It is well known that the last few months have been difficult in the League. With a Salvini perpetually anxious about the decline in consensus and the simultaneous advance on a national scale of the Brothers of Italy. A framework in which the excessive power of the governor of the Veneto has only increased the concerns. Not so much for the rumors that give him as a possible internal competitor of the leader, but for the fact that the two have completely opposite profiles. And Zaia’s electoral success would only confirm the doubts that many are starting to advance about Salvini’s latest moves. With the management of the Covid-19 emergency, in fact, the governor of Veneto confirmed his institutional profile, very pragmatic and almost never willing to talk show controversy. Exactly the opposite of Salvini’s anti-system approach. There are plenty of examples, but the most significant is the controversy over the use of masks. While Zaia has never questioned it, the former Minister of the Interior moved in a wavering manner, attending the meetings of the so-called “deniers” of Covid and cheerfully theorizing that the mask had no use (except then, for luck, retrace his steps).
Thus, with the passing of the months, the distance between the two has been widening. Until the last few weeks, when Salvini ordered the governor to nominate the outgoing councilors on the list of the League and not on the “Zaia president”. Not a detail, given that the goal is to prevent the governor’s personal list from exceeding that of the Northern League in Veneto. Five years ago it went exactly like this: 23% one and 17.8% the other. A result that, were to be repeated at the Regionals of 20 and 21 September, would have a different political value. Not only would it confirm that in Veneto Zaia alone is worth more than the League, but, somehow, it would certify that a fundamental piece of the productive North did not like the national turning point that Salvini wanted to impose on the party.
This is why, they tell the League, the former Minister of the Interior would not have torn his clothes for the involvement of the three Veneto regional councilors in the story of the 600 euro bonuses recognized in VAT numbers to deal with the Coronavirus. A blow to the image of Zaia, also in consideration of the fact that among them there is the vice president of the regional council, Gianluca Forcolin. It is no coincidence that the governor ultimately decided to have them resigned, ensuring they will not be reappointed. Choice on which Salvini and Lorenzo Fontana, his lieutenant in Veneto, have insisted a lot. And that could bring unpredictable aftermath. It is no coincidence that, when interviewed by Repubblica, Forcolin threw it out that while he was killed, “the governor of Lombardy is still in his place.” Attilio Fontana, in fact, has always been strenuously defended by Salvini, despite the rather embarrassing story of the Lombard coats that involves his brother-in-law and his Swiss account of over five million, which was shielded five years ago by two trusts opened in 2005 in the Bahamas.
In short, after the now famous 49 million, the moral question returns to besiege Salvini’s League. First with accounts abroad and now with INPS bonuses (also involved three deputies and five other regional councilors in Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lombardy and Piedmont). And with the real risk that the issue could become a matter of conflict within the Carroccio, especially between Lombards and Venetians who – ask Umberto Bossi for confirmation – in the Lega never really got along.

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