During a visit to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, the head of the right-wing Lega Matteo Salvini reiterated his claim for the renewed takeover of the Italian Ministry of the Interior.

Salvini held the interior ministry in Rome during the Lega's government with the left-wing populist Five Star Movement from June 2018 to September 2019.

At the same time, Salvini expressed the hope that his party would be able to outperform Giorgia Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, which has been leading in the polls, before the early parliamentary elections on September 25.

When asked if he would be willing to take on the highest government office in such a case, Salvini replied: "I'm absolutely ready for that."

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The centre-right coalition of Brothers Italy, Lega and the Christian Democrat Forza Italia led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is going into the early elections in seven weeks as the favorite with a cumulative voter approval rating of 45 percent.

In the most recent polls, the Italian brothers are eleven percentage points ahead of the Lega with 24 percent approval, while eight percent of voters want to vote for Forza Italia.

Lega chief predicts 100,000 arrivals by December”

During his two-day visit to Italy's southernmost Mediterranean outpost from Thursday to Friday, Salvini announced that the future coalition would "secure the borders" and stop the flow of migrants should the centre-right take power.

Italy should not "open its gates wide for illegal immigrants who are not fleeing war or persecution," said Salvini.

"Lampedusa is the gateway to Europe, it cannot be Europe's refugee camp," said Salvini.

If the current migration policy is not changed under his non-party successor Luciana Lamorgese, "100,000 arrivals could be registered by December," warned the Lega boss.

According to the Interior Ministry, 42,465 migrants were recorded as of Thursday,

most reached the country via the central Mediterranean.

In the same period of the previous year there were 30,315, in 2020 around 14,800.

Salvini visited the reception center for migrants on Lampedusa, which is designed for 350 people but has been overcrowded with up to 2,000 people for weeks.

For weeks, dozens to hundreds of migrants have been arriving in Lampedusa in rubber dinghies or wooden boats almost every day.

The reception center had to be evacuated several times in the past few weeks due to intolerable conditions. The migrants were taken to Sicily or southern Italy on coast guard ships or commercial ferries.

Footage of people lying on mattresses outdoors and amid rubbish in the overcrowded camp caused widespread outrage.

According to surveys, immigration is not the most important issue

Such conditions are "unworthy of a civilized country," said Salvini on Lampedusa.

The outgoing government under Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced last week that a special ferry would bring migrants from the overcrowded Lampedusa reception center to Sicily three times a week.

Salvini then accused the government of trying to hide the problem from his visit to Lampedusa.

Polling results suggest that illegal migration is not currently one of the top issues for Italians that will influence their voting decisions.

Of greater concern to voters are high inflation and high energy prices.

According to Italian media reports, the former Prime Minister Berlusconi made the villa "Due Palme" available to his ally Salvini for his stay in Lampedusa.

According to the information, Berlusconi had the villa with eight beds and direct sea access extensively restored in 2015, but rarely uses it himself.

Meanwhile, the rescue ship Geo Barents with 659 rescued boat migrants on board was expected in Taranto in southern Italy's Puglia region on Friday.

As the aid organization “Doctors Without Borders” announced on Thursday, after a long wait at sea, the authorities finally gave it permission to head for Taranto.

The organization complained that the migrants had to wait "almost nine days" on the ship before they were assigned a safe haven after their rescue.

This was "one of the longest blockades at sea that our team has ever experienced," said Doctors Without Borders.

"It mustn't happen again.

The civil sea rescuers have long complained that they often have to wait for days with the rescued people on board until the Italian authorities assign them a safe port.

For the people who were rescued from unseaworthy boats during their crossing from North Africa to Italy, this was physically and mentally torturous.

On Wednesday, three rescue organizations made a joint appeal to European politicians to set up a state search and rescue program in the central Mediterranean.

The volunteers are currently on their own on their missions.

During the summer months, a particularly large number of migrants dare to make the dangerous crossing over the central Mediterranean route.