Who will Forza Italia’s votes go to? Renzi and Calenda’s takeover bid, Meloni builds a wall to protect the government – Corriere.it

Who will Forza Italia’s votes go to? The question, now that Silvio Berlusconi is gone, he becomes more and more insistent.
Making certain forecasts is very difficult, because there will be a progressive evolution of the political situation. At least in this first phase, the only step that seems clear, the consensus of Forza Italia (7.7%, according to the latest Ipsos survey for the Courier)
they will remain within the framework of the party founded by the Cavaliere in 1994. Even after his disappearance, the consensus of the Azzurri is growing.

The scenario will change as we get closer to the European elections of June 2024. Historically, the votes of Forza Italia are consensuses that belong almost exclusively to Berlusconi’s appeal. And when the electoral campaign for Brussels comes alive, a battle will unleash to conquer them, at least in part. Here too, let’s start from an almost certainty: the Brothers of Italy will hardly participate in this raffle. Giorgia Meloni’s party, in fact, has a primary interest: FI must remain a solid formation, in fact, up to the European Championships. The reason? A dismemberment of the Azzurri would risk bringing down a majority that until a few weeks ago seemed granite. But in the Senate, if even just a small group of forced workers were to leave, Meloni would risk not having the numbers anymore and she would be forced to radically reshuffle the cards.

If FdI does not participate in this acquisition campaign, things will be very different in the Third Polo house. Matteo Renzi has the closest political pedigree to the Cavaliere, who, not surprisingly, considered him for a long time his hypothetical successor: Only then he went with the Communists…, he said.
The leader of Italia viva, while winking at the Berlusconi electorate, aware of the delicacy of the picture, immediately put his hands forward: I’m not the “royal baby”. Because Berlusconi has no heirs, he repeats. For the moment, the profile of the former premier is this, then it will change at the right moment, also because, for him, those votes serve like bread, to prove himself still alive, beyond the Palazzo operations that have succeeded so far. Carlo Calenda also used kind words towards Berlusconi, also addressing the blue electorate, but his tone was more contained than that of Renzi, his friend necessarily.

But then: who will Forza Italia’s votes go to? The political takeover bid not yet in full swing. However, at the European elections and later, the most accredited scenario is that the Knight’s party will be able to settle between 2-3%, a small political legacy. The rest of the consensus should be divided (in unequal parts) between the Brothers of Italy, the League and the Third Pole (if it really arises).

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