Meloni wants to stand as a candidate in five constituencies and spark a race for preferential votes. Her dream: to top the party lists

Consider their lot: they were not destined to live by their own choices. Start by dividing Parliament into two categories: those at the top of the list and those who are not. On the one hand, the captain sailing towards certain election (at the top of the list); on the other, the castaway who must seek out votes, face the Lotophagi (the regional councillors), and prove to voters that Rome is not Calypso’s island. It is they, the latter, who are the Odysseuses of the ballot box – those whom Edoardo Ziello, Vannacci’s deputy, describes as the ‘ghosts of Montecitorio’, the MPs who vote against the opposition’s preliminary motions and ‘who appear when fear is at its height’. Fear is at an all-time high. Meloni is making it known that she will stand as lead candidate in five constituencies to spark electoral competition: the hunt for preferential votes. Who can respond, like Lorenzo Guerini, with the aphorism of the communist Mirello Crisafulli: “I win under the first-past-the-post system, under proportional representation and by drawing lots”? The fear is running high among at least eleven thousand.

Guareschi’s advice still holds true, but with a twist: in the secrecy of the ballot box, Meloni sees you, Schlein doesn’t. We ask Marco Osnato, chair of the Chamber of Deputies’ Finance Committee, FdI’s very own Quintino Sella: how does he vote? “With his finger”. But which finger, oops! And Osnato: “An Italian finger”. And the League members? Osnato again: “I imagine with a Padanian finger.” This is no laughing matter; the situation is serious. Finger fever is taking hold. There are no lookouts, no guards for Meloni (unlike last time, when the government lost the vote on preferences and FdI had sent prison guards to keep watch from the gallery). To gauge loyalty to the electoral law (and this catches the eye of Roberta Benvenuto, the correspondent for Piazza Pulita, whom Meloni – and others – ‘adore’), every ‘Brother of Italy’ member takes a photo of their finger on the voting pad, but how many fingers does it take to actually get elected? And here the sea grows choppy and the sky takes on an aeronautical air. A quick survey of the studies doing the rounds—which are causing the Ulissidi great distress—reveals that at least thirty per cent of FdI’s MPs were miraculously saved last time by the ‘Giorgia effect’. Except that Meloni, who is in Genoa at the Boat Show without Mayor Silvia Salis on stage – and please don’t jump to conclusions (the organisers excluded her from the ribbon-cutting ceremony, so much so that Meloni rang her) – has had enough this time.

Meloni’s warning is clear: she will not tolerate those who spend their time in Rome socialising while she works and has no private life. The solution? Maximise the number of preferences while minimising the number of lead candidates. What do MPs who remain unknown after five years actually want? Giorgia, “make me the lead candidate”, and Lollo (the man with the taut braces), “take me with you”The League is reportedly alarmed, with the exception of Claudio Durigon (who already has twenty thousand preference votes) and Luca Zaia (who has secured more than two hundred thousand), whom Salvini intends to field as lead candidates in five constituencies. Those who have worked up a sweat at the seven polling stations – and in their shirts – are the ones with the preference votes. Edoardo Rixi, the Deputy Minister at the MIT, recalls: “In the regional election I got 11,000 preference votes and I also stood as a candidate for the municipality of Genoa, to boost the list. Around 2,000 preference votes. You get elected if you have the votes; it’s very simple.” Another example. Chiara Colosimo, chair of the Anti-Mafia Commission, from FdI. Dear Colosimo, which do you prefer: being the lead candidate or receiving preferential votes? “I’m a soldier; Meloni will decide. In the regional elections, I received around six thousand preferential votes.” Within FdI, on paper, after Meloni, the ‘preference king’ is Lollobrigida, followed by Fitto (who commands a tally of nearly one hundred thousand). The others are Rampelli, Gemmato, Edmondo Cirielli, and names that may not mean much to you, but who reign supreme in the provinces. Let’s check in with Osnato again. In Sicily? “Cannata is a champion of preference votes.” Excuse us, Osnato, but what about you? “I don’t boast, but I’ve got a fair number.” Carlo Maccari, FdI’s coordinator in Lombardy, comes over to greet us, ready to navigate the perils of Scylla and Charybdis (a former mayor of Guidizzolo, provincial and regional councillor, and Member of Parliament) – a man who bears the scars: “Thanks to my preferential votes, I was the only one north of the Po to beat Forza Italia, when Forza Italia was the dominant party.” In the PD, it is well known that preferential votes appeal to reformists like Guerini, a man who loves the ‘flesh-and-blood’ vote even in the PD primaries (“you have to vote by putting yourself out there”). The Vannacci supporters are as fortunate as the Sansepolcristi. They aspire to stand as lead candidates: Pierro in Campania, Ziello in Tuscany, Bof in Veneto and Furgiuele in Calabria – the region where, whether as lead candidate or on the preference list, it matters little because, as Furgiuele comments: “Does Meloni want us? Fine. Doesn’t Meloni want us? Never mind. I’m heartbroken, but I can’t cry about it.” He will be elected because the ‘preferenza’ is a family heirloom, his father’s watch passed down through the generations. For the time being, he ends up with 229 votes, seven more than Giovanni Donzelli had predicted. Whose are they? Ziello, who is also Vannacci’s ‘Tiger Man’ (he wears tight-fitting Tigerman trousers), suggests: “What if they’re from Azione?” What if they were from Vannacci’s supporters? For 35 years, there have been no preference votes – that ‘X’ that acts as a form of natural selection for all problems. Those who survive are like Ulysses, who overcomes trials: men like Igor Taruffi, ‘Taruffenko’, forced to fight against Giuseppe Conte-Poseidon (even Taruffi stops off at Calypso’s, at Nausicaa’s… under the pretext of analysing the situation). Few people know this, but Taruffi secured six thousand votes in the regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, and he would be fully entitled to act as the third man between the feuding Conte and Schlein. Hero Taruffenko, between Conte and Schlein, Il Foglio proposes you as the third candidate: are you ready? And Taruffi: “I am ready”. We have made our choice. It is time to close the ballot box because Guerini has to catch his train. Listen to this old saying of his, taken from the archives of the PCUS: “At a certain hour even the Duma closes, and you vote with your feet.” Guerini, are you heading the list or standing for individual seats? “Obviously, heading the list.”