Resignations of Delmastro and Bartolozzi and pressures on Santanchè: Meloni furious cleans house amid risks and tensions

In over three years at Palazzo Chigi, they had never seen her so furious. The day after Giorgia Meloni following the defeat in the referendum turned into a fierce redde rationem. The justice, she would have vented to her team, is historically a theme dear to the right and must absolutely be recovered. So, in summary, all government members with judicial situations that create embarrassment must go. Thus, on a hectic day, the resignations of Andrea Delmastro and Giusi Bartolozzi came. Until the unprecedented note in which a prime minister asks for a step back from one of her ministers. That is Daniela Santanchè, who has so far resisted the pressure, in a high-stakes tug of war.

On trial in Milan for alleged false accounting on Visibilia and investigated for a hypothesis of bankruptcy and alleged fraud against Inps, the member of FdI was already in hot water at the beginning of 2025. For moral suasion, the president of the Senate Ignazio La Russa would also have been involved, then as now, when the Minister of Tourism conditioned her resignation on a request from Meloni. Back then it did not arrive, now it is quite explicit. The prime minister (who could take the interim of Tourism or choose a prominent technician from the sector) will not ask Parliament for a vote of confidence after the referendum defeat, she does not consider it a political crisis, and currently has no meetings scheduled with the president of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. But with the polls closed, she immediately thought of reshuffling her team. And the word “reshuffle” is circulating again. In the majority, however, it is clear that replacing a third minister (after Gennaro Sangiuliano and Raffaele Fitto) would require a new confidence from the Chambers.

It is one of the open questions that Meloni carries with her in the mission of a few hours in Algeria tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the assessments at the highest levels of government, the referendum debacle has non-negligible endogenous reasons. Carlo Nordio has never been in question, but the premier, they say, points the finger at the “lack of commitment” from the League regarding the referendum, emphasized in recent weeks also by FI. Internal analyses of the vote have revealed that part of the electorate punished the “lack of coherence” in the 'if you make a mistake, you pay' used against opponents and applied with unmatched rigor to internal cases. Above all, indeed, on Santanchè, Delmastro, and Bartolozzi. Three weak points, the government reasons, to eliminate in order to neutralize attacks from the opposition. In this context, the accelerations on Delmastro and Bartolozzi were born, in hours marked by meetings between Meloni and the leaders of FdI. Within the party, they had already understood that the leader would not save the undersecretary, breaking a pattern that has always seen her protect her loyalists. The step back, in the hopes with which it was guided, will avoid further embarrassments.

Heavy was also considered at Palazzo Chigi the “own goal” of Bartolozzi regarding the judiciary as a “firing squad”, at the most delicate moment of the referendum campaign. And even for her - who has a technical role but has been a protagonist in many political events, including the Almasri case, for which she is under investigation - the resignations came. Just eight hours earlier, Nordio had secured her position, who in his own way immediately felt the acceleration, concluded with a three-hour meeting with his now former chief of staff and Delmastro (the delegations to the Dap could go to Deputy Minister Francesco Paolo Sisto or Undersecretary Andrea Ostellari, otherwise another undersecretary from FdI will be appointed). For the former magistrate, there is already talk of a position in the upcoming round of appointments for the leadership of public companies. Meloni's double move is appreciated by those in FI: a well-timed political move, it is defined in blue circles, lowers the tension and removes the government from instrumentalizations.