Alas, this Luigi Di Maio can almost be sorry for you. At the age of 33, he has made it to the top, being Labor Minister, Vice-Premier and Foreman of MoVimento 5 Stelle, the country's strongest party. But all of a sudden he is threatened with the end of his career.
Because his five-star movement and her coalition partner, the Lega, tolerate and bear no longer. Therefore Lega CEO Matteo Salvini wants to end the government with Di Maio quickly, Italian media report: The day after the European election, no matter how they go out, "we put an end to this story," the Lega boss recently communicated important party officials.
That would be tough for the good star boss. It looks like alternatives to politics: He did not complete his studies, did not learn a profession, and only briefly worked as a webmaster in 2007. His grandiose rise is due solely to the protest movement MoVimento 5 Stelle, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo. Therefore, he tries everything to prevent the premature end of the coalition. But somehow the brilliant election winner of 2018 has become a "bad boy". He is down almost everywhere.
Not even ten percent of Italians believe Di Maio, head of the largest parliamentary group in parliament, has much to say in the government. More than half of the electorate thinks Lega boss Salvini is the deciding man. Even Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who has no party at all and no deputy behind him and came as a compromise candidate of Salvini and Di Maio in office, consider 25 percent to be powerful.
Italy is no longer governed but only blocked
Of the entrepreneurs who met recently at a major nationwide forum, 70 percent expect new elections or a new coalition. Most of the "business" want that too, because Italy is no longer governed, but only blocked: the growth program, the tax reform, promised assistance to the victims of bankruptcies, everything is put on hold. Not even in Venezuela - where the rest of Europe, the churches, most Western countries, even the US agree - the Italo rulers have a common position.
Even in Di Maio's party, resentment is growing over him. One of the heartfelt concerns of the five-star movement after the other - from the "no" to the high-speed train from Turin to Lyon to the € 780 basic income for all - is tilted or capped. Because Salvini wants it that way and Di Maio can not stop him.
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Luigi di Maio, Giuseppe Conte, Matteo Salvini: "Why are you doing this?"
In droves, the followers migrate: Only about 22 percent of Italians today would give their votes to the stars - that's about ten percentage points less than last year. In contrast, the Lega moved quickly, now to over 32 percent. And the Di Maio troupe has no idea to stop the trend.
"You stab me in the back"
Last Tuesday, Di Maio did not even feel like going to the Cabinet meeting. Other star ministers swatted the same way, in the end, three star government members were against a nearly complete Lega team. After the meeting, Salvini said cheerfully, "those present" had, as he wanted, the "Salva Roma" -Dekret (German: "Save Rome" -Dekret) cut out of the budget law again, in which the star page before had inserted into it. It is about the discharge of the heavily indebted Italian capital by up to two billion euros, so that the 5 -step Virginia Raggi led city government gets financial leeway to eliminate the garbage mountains, repairing dilapidated roads, rehabilitate problem areas.
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Of course, the three-star participants had experienced the Cabinet round quite differently: they had not even discussed the topic, let alone passed resolutions. Never mind, Salvini said the decree would not go away. If the star faction got it in Parliament, "I'll present myself there with all the Lega ministers and openly vote against it." Di Maio was furious. "Why are you doing this?", He said on the phone to the coalition friend, "you're stabbing me in the back, but I'm going to strike back."
Connections to the mafia
That's why he was actually on a TV talk show at the time of the Cabinet round: to launch a counterattack, with quite dangerous ammunition. Because the right-wing nationalists of the Lega are on the verge of a delicate scandal about corruption with mafia involvement. The Lega Secretary of State Armando Siri is said to have complimented a businessman who is also said to be well acquainted with Salvini and whose son has provided the Lega with contacts with the American right wing Steve Bannon.
Unfortunately, this businessman is also a partner of an entrepreneur with connections to one of the most dangerous drug traffickers in the world, to which many murders are said. Not a nice environment for a Secretary of State, finds the five-star movement and calls for Siri's release. This is completely absurd for Lega-Salvini, "because we have nothing to do with the mafia". Basta. Now Prime Minister Conte is to decide the matter, but he has yet to go on a trip abroad. Until he comes back, so the Lega calculus, the thing is through.