"It went very badly": the phrase that Meloni did not say but knows very well

At Palazzo Chigi, there is hardly any visibility. And in the evening, the summary of the day is made by a high-ranking member of FdI: "It went very badly". Worse than the worst expectations, because the referendum on justice has been, given the record turnout, inevitably "a vote against the government". Giorgia Meloni would never say it, but she is aware of it. She discusses it with her deputy prime ministers, Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini, whom she speaks to in order to make initial assessments of a result that catches the center-right quite by surprise. Because the outcome is unequivocal. And it must have been the wrong moment, because in situations of great uncertainty, as the loyal Giovanbattista Fazzolari says, citizens do not want to take "leaps into the void" and prefer "the status quo". But the fact is that for the majority of Italians, the Constitution is untouchable, or at least not in this way.

Citizens have spoken "clearly", and it would be foolish for those who do not know how to do politics not to take it into account; this would have been one of the thoughts - it is said in majority circles - that the prime minister would have expressed with her team. Along with the urgency to stay focused to prevent the center-left from having the space (and time) to build a government alternative. Because as one of her lieutenants, Giovanni Donzelli, admits on TV, "with these numbers" they could even win. Care must be taken "not to be left to roast", suggests more than one of her loyalists. Because it is clear that now the last mile of the legislature will be more complicated, and not only because the judiciary might try to be even more "incisive" (always quoting Fazzolari) to put sticks in the wheels of the government.

"It will be a year of electoral campaigning", all on a rollercoaster, and "the tensions" can only increase, predicts a bigwig of the majority who has experienced several seasons of the center-right. For this reason, the right-hand man of the premier preaches "serenity" and still "greater cohesion" of the coalition, in light of - says the undersecretary to the Presidency - an electoral campaign that the center-left has "radicalized". The allies have signed a program that is being carried forward, including justice reform. And the horizon remains that of reaching "the end of the legislature" having honored "all the commitments made to the Italians", reasons Fazzolari. Explaining that they will also move forward with the "premiership", which has been parked for more than a year now in the Constitutional Affairs Committee in Montecitorio. And also with the electoral law, which is nothing more than "a step towards the premiership", and could begin its process in the Chamber as early as this week.

Officially, there are no plans B, nor reshuffles on the horizon. Certainly, the case of Andrea Delmastro will need to be addressed, as it has created more than a little embarrassment in the executive. The undersecretary of Justice remained in his Biella to follow the counting but the premier may call him in the coming hours, once he returns to Rome, at least for a clarification, and there are those who do not rule out more drastic decisions. Then she herself will head to Algiers, to demonstrate that the government's action does not suffer setbacks from what is, for her, the first clear defeat.