Santa Giorgia from Bari: “I won’t give up”, but the public is asking her “with Vannacci”

Bari. She can now be called Mother Meloni of Pietrelcina: “I’m not giving up, and I have no intention of doing so now”. The judges? “We make the laws, but it’s pointless if they release rapists”. It’s the celebration of the longest-serving government, but it feels like a pilgrimage to the shrine of the friar in his habit. Trump’s two years are the stigmata, and the wars – living alongside Salvini – are the miracle: “In these years, nothing has been lacking”. Fans, buses, caravans, lorries and cranes, 34 degrees in the shade, and there are the illuminations – those honouring the patron saints – alongside the cruise ships moored at Bari’s port, quay ten, the pier serving as a stage, the gangway for the Meloni II. The motto is now ‘Seize the duration, Carpe stability’. They are the people of the outstretched armband that has replaced the hand—that of the old fascist grandfather—and instead of the bust of ‘that bloke’, they wear Giorgia’s scapular, the ‘I was there’ badge.

They do not want to relinquish the government – that grace bestowed upon them, the sweetness of ruling – even at the cost of having to put up with Vannacci, as the mayor of Catania, Enrico Trantino of FdI, puts it: “Sì, purtroppo”. To resist, to persevere. Even reaching Bari has become a metaphor for these years. Meloni celebrates her government’s record, whilst Ryanair celebrates its record for delays. The popular flight 7075 from Rome Fiumicino to Bari is rescheduled for 12 noon, then 1 pm, and finally 2 pm, but it departs at 3 pm, leaving Giorgia’s supporters stranded in Rome, whilst journalists from Rai and La7 are diverted from gate 61 to 73, with the Deputy Minister for the Economy, Maurizio Leo, travelling in economy class. Together with FdI MP Riccardo Zucconi, the expert on competition and seaside resorts—who was also on a scheduled flight (like Meloni, but with ITA)—we joke that now we can see what the Russian influences were all about. At Bari airport, I see Giulio Tremonti lost in thought, and not far away, Ignazio La Russa, with a queue of cars waiting for him. Everyone rushes toward the terminal, the port, with their backs to the city, among tyres and wrecks—a landscape reminiscent of migration, but with residence permits. FdI has estimated ten thousand supporters, but on the shuttle bus taking us beneath the stage, a local Neapolitan journalist, Andrea, tells me that “it’s all fenced off. ‘In the end there’ll be five thousand of us, but in this heat that’s an impressive number.’ They are the ‘melonised’ troops, the FdI Salerno minibus, and they’re filming as if they were really about to take part in something they might well miss out on: ‘And yet, we were the longest-serving government.’ They recall those provincial families who, in winter, look back at their honeymoon photos: “Do you remember, that enduring happiness?” Francesco Giubilei, who chairs the AN Foundation, who studied Tatarella, and who is now the face of the rogue right, speaks before me: “If you ask me about Vannacci, I’ll tell you that his is a caricatured brand of the right. Think of Reggio Calabria, that low blow he dealt to Forza Italia. You can’t form an alliance with them.” And won’t we lose the election? “Oh yes, we’ll lose.”

We enter under escort, beneath the festive lights, and meet Raffaele Fitto, who is overwhelmed by hugs and calls of encouragement: “Come on, Raffaele, off to the Quirinale”. We also see Malio Messina again, the defector from FdI, who has now returned and is defending the Meloni government. But hadn’t he left? To which he replies: “In truth, I never left”. On the instructions of Augusta Montaruli and Ministers Foti and Mazzi – who had planned the event’s staging alongside Giovanni Donzelli – the MPs mingle with the party supporters, just as Lollobrigida does. She chooses the low wall, “to get a better view”, and when asked which ministry she’d like to hold in a Meloni II government, should it materialise, Lollobrigida replies: “The Ministry of Holidays.” The music is by Giuni Russo, ‘Alghero’, and the usual ‘Il cielo è sempre più blu’ by Rino Gaetano.

They do not hide their dislike for Salvini, and this is evident when he takes the floor via video link, as the applause is half-hearted. They blame him for the votes he has lost, even more so than the Lega does. They would already like to replace him with Vannacci, as Angelo, a pensioner from Fasano, confides to me: “Of course I’d back him! His votes are ours in the end. Would she lose the government? I wouldn’t.” In a marquee, there are hundreds of Azione Giovani flags, but as for the young people, Angelo tells me again: “Mind you, they’re voting for Vannacci. My nephew sends me his videos with the vodka. How does Giorgia manage without Vannacci?”

They still adore her like a saint and applaud her when ‘Giorgia’ says: ‘Stability is the first major reform we have given to this nation’; ‘we were the sick men of Europe and the other prime ministers used to ask us: “How long is this going to last?”’. She is already on the campaign trail and next week she is even heading to Vercelli to celebrate rice, because a grain of public support is worth more than attending the United Nations General Assembly. Vannacci is on her mind, just as the ghost of Ranucci haunts the room at Rai, because, Meloni promises, ‘we want whoever wins to have the numbers; no sudden reversals, no governments of compromise – the only judgement that counts is that of the Italians. Whatever it may be, it is always the right one’.

He now lists the old sins of the Left – ‘the superbonus’, ‘twenty years of encrustations’ – rather than the list of his travels, that map he used to display like a trophy at the early Atreju festivals. Ukraine isn’t even mentioned. Perhaps the finest line came from Guido Crosetto, who remained the only one—alongside Fazzolari—to assert that Kyiv must be helped, the only one to say: “History was made by the Ukrainians and the victims.”

What endures? The sea. Meloni promises that “we will increase the amount of oil we can extract from our seas”. Her Scilla, however, is that scum of a general whom she reminds that “femicide exists, and how it does”, and even Ranucci, those “who compare themselves to Falcone and Borsellino”.

Lollobrigida, speaking from her usual perch, reveals that they might “make it to the end of the parliamentary term” – another year, until October – and in saying so, she expresses the regret of those who cannot walk away whilst things are going well, like Mina who is retiring, or Salinger who wrote just one great book and then vanished. Meloni’s longevity is like the sirens in Nolan’s "The Odyssey". They ask him what that sound is, and Ulysses explains that it is what one has had and lost: “And what you can no longer have is what you have already had and lost.”