Can Italy’s opposition unite against Giorgia Meloni?
Leftwing parties remain divided on Russia and on joint candidate for prime minister ahead of upcoming elections
As the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged Italy in 2020, then-prime minister Giuseppe Conte welcomed a Russian military-humanitarian mission that security experts warned gave Moscow a golden opportunity to gather intelligence.
Alongside doctors and medical equipment flown in on 14 military aircraft, Russia also sent “30 special units, each consisting of two vehicles equipped with data processing modules”, according to an Italian government statement at the time.
Conte is now eyeing a political comeback, jostling to lead a centre-left alliance against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in upcoming elections. As part of his pitch is a shift in Rome’s support for Kyiv and a return to a friendlier stance towards Moscow.
“We must change everything — starting with foreign policy,” Conte told cheering supporters of his populist Five Star Movement in Milan this month.
He is not alone in wanting to lead Italy’s next government.
Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), sees herself as the rightful head of the opposition’s so-called “wide field”, of which her party is the largest, polling roughly twice the level of the Five Star Movement.
How Conte, Schlein and their supporters reconcile their competing ambitions and divergent views — not least over Ukraine — will help determine the strength of the challenge they can mount to Meloni next year.
“They will come together. Both Schlein and Conte are very, very clear: the only chance they have to beat Meloni is to come together in an alliance,” said Daniele Albertazzi, a political scientist at the University of Surrey. “The question is, is this going to be a credible proposal for the electorate or not?”
Nearly four years after taking office, Meloni’s aura of invincibility is starting to fray. Voters are disgruntled by sluggish growth and a squeeze on real wages. A recent YouTrend poll found 53 per cent believed Italy was going in the wrong direction.
The prime minister is also under attack on her right from Roberto Vannacci, the former general whose new National Future party is drawing support from Meloni’s junior coalition partners, the conservative Forza Italia and the far-right League.
She is also pushing for a controversial electoral system overhaul originally designed to bolster her coalition’s chances of re-election but which could backfire, given Vannacci’s appeal with her base.
While Italy’s next elections must be held by next autumn, analysts say Meloni may be tempted to seek an early vote.
But to exploit the prime minister’s vulnerabilities, opposition parties must overcome a long history of mutual animosity and mistrust and fight together — something they failed to do in the 2022 general election, when their divisions helped Meloni’s rightwing alliance to a comfortable victory.
“It was our inability to unite that gave them the keys to the country,” Lia Quartapelle, a PD lawmaker and vice-president of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the FT.
Meloni’s vote reform — awaiting final parliamentary approval next week — adds another incentive to coalesce by rewarding the largest pre-election alliance with extra seats. To benefit, parties would have to campaign behind a joint PM candidate and a common political platform — requirements that are already roiling the fragmented opposition.
Schlein wants centre-left parties to agree on a common platform before holding primaries to choose a prime ministerial candidate. Conte wants the leader chosen first. Other likely partners include Italia Viva, led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi, who is deeply disliked by Five Star supporters, and the leftist Green-Left Alliance.
With Conte and Schlein already publicly sniping at each other, some suggest the allies should avoid a divisive primary and instead agree on a unifying consensus candidate — an approach backed by Renzi, who sees scope to choose a loyal protégé.
But Conte is set on holding a primary, which polls currently suggest the combative Five Star leader would be well placed to win.
“Conte is much more appreciated by a majority of people in the PD than Schlein is appreciated in the Five Star Movement,” said Gianmauro Dell’Olio, a Five Star lawmaker. “In a potential war against Meloni, Conte has by far more chances.”
Even if PD and Five Star manage to unite behind a single candidate, they would likely struggle to govern together, said Lorenzo Castellani, a political historian at Rome’s Luiss University.
“There is a lot of fog around the programme of the leftwing coalition,” Castellani said, calling the prospective alliance “an electoral cartel, not a real coalition” given their ideological differences. If they actually win, he added, “the risk of instability is high”.
Among the most divisive issues is support for Ukraine. Conte — like Vannacci — would like to put a stop to Rome’s military aid to Kyiv. The PD is divided: while some members are pacifists, others are convinced that helping Ukraine defend itself is critical to Europe’s security.
PD senator Filippo Sensi has downplayed the Five Star’s opposition to Ukraine aid as posturing, saying their stance would change once in government.
But Quartapelle said the left’s equivocal stance on such an important matter was hardly appealing to voters and that the PD and Five Stars had to engage in an “orderly process” to find common ground.
“You cannot be a democratic coalition against a nationalist coalition if you don’t have a clear recipe on Europe . . . and the idea of Europe goes through Ukraine,” she said. “We cannot go [together] to an electoral campaign if we don’t clear this up.”
“Giorgia Meloni is worn out,” she added. “If we do our homework, if we behave, if we concentrate, we can win.”