Giorgia Meloni crushes Silvio Berlusconi in showdown

The former PM’s backtracking symbolises his surrender of the leadership of the right to some he once nicknamed ‘Little One’.

Backed by only 63 parliamentarians in last month’s vote, Silvio Berlusconi is a junior partner to Giorgia Meloni, who has 184 MPs and senators. Picture: AFP

Giorgia Meloni is on course to form a government in Italy as early as the weekend after defeating a power play by her ally, Silvio Berlusconi, in a spat seen as a humiliation for the former prime minister.

Summoned to Ms Meloni’s office for a 70-minute meeting, Mr Berlusconi, 86, then emerged to claim that he was fully backing her as the country’s first female prime minister, days after he described her as “patronising, overbearing, arrogant and offensive”.

Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy became the largest party at last month’s elections but needs backing from Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League parties to achieve a parliamentary majority — prompting tough talks over assigning cabinet posts.

When Ms Meloni, 45, ruled out a senior job for Licia Ronzulli, a close aide to Mr Berlusconi, he ordered his senators not to vote for Ms Meloni’s choice of senate speaker, only to see his plot thwarted when opposition votes led to her candidate’s election.

After Mr Berlusconi hurled insults at Ms Meloni, who replied that she was immune to blackmail, the two met for a tense tete-a-tete where Ms Meloni appeared to prevail, since by Tuesday Mr Berlusconi was merely pushing to appoint Ms Ronzulli his party leader in the senate.

Reports suggested that at their meeting, he sought to convince Ms Meloni that the list of criticisms of her that he wrote down, and which were captured by a photographer, were not his opinions but those of his senators. “My opinion was on another piece of paper and it was totally positive,” he said.

Francesco Lollobrigida, a senior Brothers of Italy official close to Ms Meloni, attempted to give Mr Berlusconi the benefit of the doubt, telling the newspaper Corriere della Sera: “I don’t think they were his words.”

Mr Berlusconi’s backtracking symbolised his surrender of the leadership of the right, which he held for years, to Ms Meloni, who he nicknamed “the Little One” when he appointed her a minister in his government in 2008.

Fourteen years later, backed by only 63 parliamentarians in last month’s vote, he is a junior partner to Ms Meloni, who has 184 MPs and senators.

Mr Berluscononi is accustomed to hosting political allies at his villas in Rome and northern Italy, and his summons to Ms Meloni’s Rome office for their meeting was likened by Italian media to the Humiliation of Canossa in 1077, when the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV was forced to wait on his knees in a blizzard for three days to ask Pope Gregory VII to lift his excommunication.

“The defeat of the Forza Italia leader is total,” said La Repubblica, which compared the clash to an episode of Game of Thrones.

Ms Meloni is expected to complete her cabinet list this week and swear in her government as early as Sunday, with Mr Berlusconi’s party reported to be in line for about five ministries. After years of tangling with judges, he is still on trial accused of bribing guests to keep silent about what went on at his bunga-bunga parties.

The Times