In Sicily the Meloni-Salvini axis crumbles and Schifani does not know how to get out of it

Relations between Meloni and Salvini, in Sicily, continue under a bad star. The success of Catania with Enzo Trantino was not enough to consolidate the ranks of the centre-right, which on the eve of the ballots on Sunday and Monday (four Municipalities over 15,000 inhabitants are called to vote, including Syracuse) must deal with fibrillation internal: Brothers of Italy, thanks to his ascendancy over the governor Schifani, has in fact asked for the removal of the Salvinian Mimmo Turano by the regional council.

The councilor for education would have been the architect of the defeat received ten days ago by the center-right in Trapani, where the ambitious candidate of FdI, Maurice Miceli, was beaten in the first round by Giacomo Tranchida, a Pd member but “civic” for the occasion. Alongside him, with 9% of the consensus, a list attributable to Turano himself, obviously without the Carroccio symbol. Hence the strong and clear claim of the FdI General Staff: “It happened that a player took off his team’s shirt and played with the other team’s. The president of the Region must intervene”, were the fiery words pronounced by the coordinator of Fratelli d’Italia for western Sicily, Giampiero Cannella. But the resentment of the patriots has extended to other key figures of the party: from the national deputy Caroline Varchivery close to Giorgia Meloni, passing through Senator Salvo Pogliese and the group leader at Ars, George Absence: the wait for a settlement of accounts has become spasmodic.

It is a pity that Salvini’s latest visits to Sicily have anesthetized the timing of Schifani’s decision: he too, at first, seemed convinced of the need for a tweak to the government team. Turano, however, is one of the Northern League’s new entries on the island and enjoys the support of Luca Sammartino, current vice president of the Region and catalyst for votes, especially in the province of Catania (in the last regional elections he obtained more than 20,000 preferences). An already seasoned enfant prodige – he comes from the dual experience with the Democratic Party and with Italia Viva – that neither Schifani nor Salvini can risk losing on a patriotic “whim”. So the situation stagnates.

Moreover, the administrative elections and the victory in Catania have not erased old grievances within the centre-right. So much so that the coalition has to deal with the breakup of Syracuse, where a piece of Forza Italia will support the Calendian in the ballot Francis Italy, outgoing mayor opposed to the blue Ferdinando Messina. And above all in Acireale, where Schifani’s “chosen one”, the former mayor Roberto Barbagallo, is opposed by the same allied parties of the governor in Palermo: that is, the Brothers of Italy, the League and even Totò Cuffaro’s new Christian Democrats.

Around the candidate Barbagallo, in these hours, a hornet’s nest has exploded due to the latter’s frequentations with some exponents of the Ercolano-Santapaola mafia clan, among the most ferocious in the Catania area, brought to light by a report from the police station of Acireale and the Flying Squad. Barbagallo himself was sentenced in the first instance for illegal requests by a traffic policeman and his position is now being sieved by the parliamentary anti-mafia commission and by the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, informed by a report from Angelo Bonelli (Greens).

In short, a chaos that is almost impossible to untangle, which could have after-effects with respect to a possible success in the polls (for example the dispute of “mafia infiltration”). Schifani, invited by the former Hyena Ishmael La Vardera, now a deputy of the opposition to the Ars, to withdraw his support for Barbagallo, has not said a word on the matter. He has too many problems to solve even within his own party: Forza Italia in Catania has already split into a couple of factions that are fighting for more space in the Trantino junta. The election of the lawyer and son of art – the father is a historic exponent of the MSI and the National Alliance – seemed to be able to guarantee greater impetus to the action of the center-right, but so far it has proved to be only the beginning of the end.