“They want to investigate Arianna Meloni”: the headline dominates the front page of the newspaper. And the alarm, signed by the director Alessandro Sallusti, hypothesizes that an axis made up of hostile newspapers, left-wing and militant prosecutors is plotting against the prime minister’s sister. At the helm of the political secretariat of Fratelli d’Italia, Arianna could soon be investigated – this is the SOS of the Giornale – for influence peddling on the latest government appointments. Thus trying to undermine the executive’s stability from the most intimate side. From the Apulian farmhouse where the two sisters are on holiday it is Georgia Meloni to intervene, making all her anger felt. “Unfortunately, I find what Sallusti wrote today very plausible,” says the Prime Minister, calling it “extremely serious if it were true” and comparing it to “a scheme seen and reviewed especially against Silvio Berlusconi.” That is, “a system of power that uses every method and every subterfuge – she explains – in order to defeat a political enemy that wins the democratic competition at the ballot box.” So after having “searched through my life and that of every person close to me, without finding anything,” the “worst politics” has moved on to “squalid and desperate moves” such as the one against the firstborn of the house and her beloved sister. “But ultimately,” the Prime Minister concludes, “it would also be a good sign, because these squalid and desperate moves by the worst politics would only mean that we are dismantling the system of interests that has held Italy hostage for too many years. So, let’s move forward with our heads held high, with even greater determination.”
Aside from the bloody defense, it is the political family of the Fratelli d’Italia leader – from the group leaders to the undersecretaries to the privates of the party – who are closing ranks. And from the trenches, the attack begins: the target of the plot – the Melonians are getting heated up, starting with the most loyal John Donzelli – is trying to stop the government and its reforms, in addition to “polluting democracy”. Donzelli’s accusation, launched in one breath in a video on social media, is that “a conspiracy of journalists, left-wing politicians and complacent magistrates” is surrounding Arianna with “a low and surreal blow”, having failed to hit the prime minister. FdI therefore warns: “You will not pass” addressing the “professional troublemakers” not better specified or indicated. Yet in Sallusti’s editorial there are some names. Of politicians linked to Matthew Renzi. The journalist starts from the “morbid” and “objectively disproportionate” insistence addressed to Meloni senior with articles and behind-the-scenes stories that aim to demonstrate – is the reasoning – her role as a great manipulator of the most delicate state games. So far the press. Then politics, with the application of the ‘Palamara method’, Sallusti still supports. Who cites the questions asked by the parliamentarians of Italia Viva, Raffaella Paita And Maria Elena Boschi, to see clearly about a possible involvement of the Sister of Italy in the appointments of Rai and Ferrovie dello Stato.
At lunch time Renzi’s reply. “Do the Meloni sisters see ghosts?” is the incipit of his very long tweet, which continues sarcastically: “Can you imagine? Me organizing plots together with the judges (me!) so that a notice of investigation arrives!”. Then he insinuates: “Either the Meloni sisters know something that we don’t know and that we will understand in the next few months or some panzerotto went wrong: inside FdI there is too much nervousness”. He repeats that he is a guarantor and “not a justiciar like those of FdI” and defends his people who, with the questions, have done what the opposition does.
Another historical exponent of the right, such as Fabio Rampelli, today as vice president of the Chamber. Who sees a mafia style in the mud machine against Arianna, activated by some prosecutors: «it is a method more or less in vogue among the clans when, unable to hit the bosses, the rival clans take reprisals on the ‘family members’», he says. In the rest of the pro-Arianna center-right, Andrea Crippa of the League and Raffaele Nevi of Forza Italia are aligned: for the first «the scenario described is worrying because it is plausible; for the second “it is the old vice of the left of smearing political opponents».