A new grassroots movement called
'sardines' is fighting against Italy's rightwing strongman
Matteo Salvini across the nation after a spectacular launch in
Bologna last week.
Former interior minister Salvini pulled the plug on the first
government of Premier Giuseppe Conte in August hoping to cash in
on soaring opinion polls fuelled by his tough anti-migrant and
security policy positions.
That government was backed by an alliance between Salvini's
anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party and the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement (M5S).
Salvini brought down the government citing alleged M5S
inaction and asked for "full powers" from the Italian people in
a snap vote.
But the move backfired as the M5S agreed to team up with its
long-time foe, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), in a
second Conte-led government.
Salvini's poll ratings suffered after his blunder but he has
since surged again on the back of stiff opposition to the M5S-PD
coalition, which is also supported by ex-premier and former PD
leader Matteo Renzi's new centrist Italia Viva (IV) party, and
the small leftwing Free and Equal (LeU) party.
Salvini has prospered by claiming the new government will
reverse his ban on NGO run migrant ships and allegedly "flood"
Italy with migrants as happened in 2016-17.
He has also depicted the 2020 budget bill as "full of taxes",
despite government denials.
But his stances have buoyed the League and it led the
centre-right alliance featuring ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's
Forza Italia (FI) party and Giorgia Meloni's rightist
nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party to a crushing victory
in Umbria regional elections last month.
Now Salvini is hoping to repeat the success in another former
leftwing stronghold, Emilia Romagna, which goes to the vote on
January 26.
Salvini kicked off his Emilia Romagna campaign in Bologna
last Thursday night, vowing to "free" the region from the
leftwing parties he says have mismanaged it in recent years.
But his flagship kick-off rally in Bologna's Paladozza was
overshadowed by the birth of the 'sardines," who managed to
bring out over 15,000 people to a nearby Bologna square, saying
they were "packed in like sardines".
Now the sardine say they have been inundated with requests
for similar anti-Salvini events, after a another successful one
in Modena at the weekend.
They have had requests from cities all over Italy including
Salerno near Naples.
Salvini tried to shrug off the threat from the new movement
on Tuesday, quipping "I prefer cats to sardines"..
Sardine leaders said Tuesday they had "40 piazzas" across
Italy ready to hoist their anti-Salvini protests, ranging from
Reggio Emilia to Rome and Sorrento and Bari in the south.
Their new Facebook page already has 45,000 members.
In Rome there are two sardine movements who are organising a
flash mob in the Testaccio district Saturday and a rally
elsewhere in the capital on Friday.
"We are not anti-politics and we tell people to back leftwing
parties," said sardine organiser Mattia Santori.
PD leader Nicola Zingaretti has praised the new movement and
said "they really are on to something".
But there has already been a strong backlash in the populist
press and from rightist haters on the Web.
Salvini added: "I like these kids because they give value and
importance to all my appearances. On the next few dates I'm
going to go and say hello to them and thanks them because they
provide added value. I prefer cats to sardines because they eat
them when they're hungry."
The movement is primarily made up of young people, but older
ones are now flocking to it too.
"I'm a Neapolitan sardine," said a 67-year-old pensioner as
she held up a placard in the southern city on Tuesday.
Salvini said Wednesday "I wasn't afraid of the Casamonicas
(Rome crime family) when I was interior minister, just think if
I'm scared of these sardines".
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