Receipts, cash flows, rigour. The results Meloni cannot reveal

Should one try to win votes by concealing what one has become, or by claiming it? Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Giorgia Meloni’s election campaign does not so much concern the Prime Minister’s desire to devise useful strategies to try and sideline the Vannacci issue (it is possible to win even without a general election: see yesterday’s by-election in Reggio Calabria). Rather, it concerns a significant problem linked to the history of her four years in government: the inability to reap the rewards generated by her government’s most significant achievements. Meloni is in desperate need of demagogic measures and promises, not only because Vannacci is nipping at her heels, but also because a large part of the policies that have enabled the government to last so long can hardly be presented to voters as a success to be claimed.

Last Saturday, Il Sole 24 Ore pointed out that, thanks to the requirement for cash registers to be linked to POS terminals – which came into force this year – a record taxable income emerged, amounting to nearly 12 billion more than the previous year in the first eight months of the year alone. One could say to voters: look, what an incredible result, but to do so one would have to admit that the anti-POS policies, long touted by the right, weren’t all that great. The same dynamic is visible in other areas. One can commend the government on the substantial reduction in the deficit-to-GDP ratio—albeit with an extra decimal point in the 2025 figure—but can one persuade voters by taking credit for one’s own austerity, after years spent denouncing the harmful effects of the technocratic government’s austerity measures? Can one applaud the government for its remarkable ability to have kept the majority’s most belligerent instincts on pensions in check, but can one really win over voters by championing an approach to pensions that has also been praised in recent years by Elsa Fornero? Can the government be praised for the way in which the executive has, in recent years, loosened the restrictions of the ‘Flussi’ decree, opening Italy’s doors to 497,550 foreign workers between 2026 and 2028, but can a majority that has taught voters to be wary of foreigners really afford to make the ‘Flussi’ decree a key campaign issue? Can the government be commended for helping Italy achieve record solar power generation – 44.3 terawatt-hours, 25 per cent more than in 2024 – but can a right-wing party that has always viewed renewables with suspicion present itself to voters by explaining that having more renewables means greater independence and therefore greater sovereignty? Can we applaud the government for the, all things considered, good results achieved by the executive on the NRRP front – on 23 September, Minister Foti announced the achievement and reporting of the 156 targets for the final instalment, and without the European billions, who knows where GDP would have ended up in recent years – but can the Right, during an election campaign, afford to extol the virtues of external constraints, when it has demonised them for as long as anyone can remember? Finally, can one be proud of what the government has done in recent years in defending Ukraine, and of the credibility Meloni has earned by being fiercely anti-Putin, but does the Right have the strength to run an election campaign centred on Ukraine? The point is clear. What Meloni has done in recent years to get where she is cannot be claimed by Meloni herself, for fear of not getting very far. But if the government’s successes have been achieved by following an agenda that has forced the right to change its ways, is pretending not to have changed really a way to try and move forward? The right’s challenge in the coming months – even more so than the Vannacci controversy – will centre on another dilemma: trying to run an election campaign without being ashamed to acknowledge what a section of the right has become during these years in government. Is it possible? Who knows.