Don’t Be Fooled by the Salvini Show, This Populist Has a Plan
Governing Italy with Five Star suits Salvini just fine, and he’s aiming to keep the coalition alive for as long as he can.
Matteo Salvini
Photographer: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images
Five days after threatening to pull the plug on Italy’s government, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini summoned his lieutenants to party headquarters on the edge of Milan.
With polls showing that voters would swing behind his anti-immigrant League if the administration collapsed, officials were pressuring Salvini to end his frustrating co-existence with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. Heading into that meeting last month they thought his patience might be wearing thin.