Matteo Salvini's populist League party in prime position to take advantage of new Italian elections

Italy will not be welcoming a populist government for now, but that is likely to turn out to be good news for the populists.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has clashed with both the League party and the 5-Star Movement (M5S) because of his refusal to appoint a eurosceptic economist, Paolo Savona, as finance minister amid concerns from investors at home and abroad. The spat led to the collapse of talks to form a M5S/League coalition government.

Mr Mattarella has asked former International Monetary Fund (IMF) official Carlo Cottarelli to form a new technocrat government. The economist, 64, is known as “Mr Scissors” for his cuts to Italy’s public spending.

Mr Cottarelli will look to present a programme to parliament, including a budget, and aim for elections early next year. However, it is unlikely he will gain the support of the parliament, meaning elections would be pushed forward to August this year.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, which was part of the right-wing coalition that gained 37 per cent of the vote in the March elections, and the M5S’s Luigi Di Maio, whose party won the single biggest individual share of the vote, have both switched to campaign mode and have called for protests against the decision by Mr Mattarella.

Early elections would suit both parties, with Mr Salvini and Mr Di Maio, having made much of the narrative that the Italian and wider European establishment are getting in the way of the will of the Italian people.

There were reports on Monday that M5S may even consider campaigning with the League in any new vote. However, as a matter of fact, it is the League that can take advantage from a fresh election seemingly better than anyone else.

“Surveys suggest that Matteo Salvini is the one who benefited the most from this long stalemate: support for him grew from 17 per cent to 25 per cent”, says Ilvo Diamanti, a professor of political science at the University of Urbino. “Luigi Di Maio didn’t profit so much from the impasse: [although] his anti-establishment 5-Star Movement is still the leading party and remains stable at about 30 per cent”.

Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which was part of the right-wing bloc with Mr Salvini, has seen support drop to around “10 per cent”, according to Mr Diamanti. A tax fraud conviction prevented Mr Berlusconi, who served multiple terms as Italian prime minister, from running for office in March. A Milan court ruled this month that he is now eligible, and he suggested on Monday he is open to running for office in new elections.

However, Mr Diamanti says that the “X-factor” of the League, which was a regional, Northern Italy secessionist party, is having turned into a nationalist, anti-immigrant and eurosceptic party. “Now that the League is the Italian version of French Front National (FN), Mr Salvini is the one that capitalises on people’s rage the most,” Mr Diamanti said.

And Mr Salvini seems to be aware of that: “I’m very angry”, he wrote on Facebook a few days ago, referring to the decisions from Mr Mattarella, before blaming “Paris, Brussels and the financial system”.

As Italy prepares for new elections, whenever they come, Mr Mattarella’s move of rejecting the eurosceptic economist Mr Savona might end up opening up a route for the populists to gain even more votes than before.