The right is right there

Berlusconi’s back alright, alright!

The Sicilian regional elections are over. The centre-right coalition managed to reconquer the island after five years of centre-left government. Five years ago, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his allies lost the election because they were fragmented and right out of a messy political situation at the national stage. Nello Musumeci, who won the governorship this week, had lost in 2012, ending a reign that lasted since 1996.

This sixteen-years-long period will not be remembered for it’s economical or managerial successes and certainly not for in terms of legality. Sicilian people decided that even accounting for all that, the centre-right coalition now deserved the top job on the island which should make the losers in the centre-left think twice about the reasons for the defeat. The Democratic party kept the same votes but an internal feud inside the party as well as with former allies, made the left become irrelevant in the run to governorship, and spells trouble for the incoming national general elections.

The third pole of the system is represented by the Five Star Movement. The party got a record number of votes but stopped short of gaining the leadership of the island. It is no secret that the Movement invested heavily on this victory to use as a stepping stone for the national elections. Most of all the winner of this turnout was the no-vote, which doesn’t bode well for a movement that prides itself with being the new voice in the choir, a wind of change that evidently wasn’t blowing hard enough.

Something must have changed in the party dynamics after the vote. Just a few days prior to it, the Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio challenged Matteo Renzi on a television debate. Once the election was over though, he went back on his word and stood-up the former Prime Minister that went on alone on the show and did a normal interview as a guest. Di Maio defended the choice by saying that Renzi is not the real rival of the Movement because he doesn’t have the full control of his party and thus, will only talk with the official candidate premier from the party when they will have one. Furthermore, he moved his attention towards the old enemy and challenged Silvio Berlusconi himself to the same tv duel.

Sicilians were not the only voting on Sunday. In Ostia, near Rome, they voted for the municipality and its president after 2 years of being taken over by the central government for Mafia links. The news here is that CasaPound, a neofascist party that gained an extremely good result for the first time, around 10%. This coupled with a 65% of no-votes function as a cautionary tale of how the state has utterly failed in this city. Just a day after this result, a journalist went to ask a few questions to the brother of a mob leader from the Spada clan. The journalist inquired about their affiliation with CasaPound and his endorsement on Facebook and other social media platforms. After answering a few questions, Roberto Spada lost his temper and head-butted the journalist at point blank and subsequently beat him up with a stick. This was all caught on video and sparked outrage for a situation in the city that has now risen to the national attention.

Going back to Sicily, it’s clear that the centre-right is a player that many discarded too early. Underestimated and fragmented, it pieced itself together and his now, as a coalition, a possible winner in the next general elections. Five Star Movement and the Democratic party have, for the past few years, only focused on insulting each other, defending or attacking the government and in the meanwhile forgot to pay attention to the steady but constant rise of both the Northern League and Forza Italia, as well as of that of Fratelli d’Italia who managed to do on the right what the extreme left seems incapable of, band together. Even only with 5%, they heavily influence the political debate of the centre-right and the governor of Sicily itself is, now, an expression of their base.

A few months separate us from the prospected general elections but it seems that the general strategies must adapt to the new situation and that yes, Silvio Berlusconi is indeed back.