Salvini ready for ministerial job - League sources

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 5 - League leader Matteo Salvini is ready for a ministerial job in Giorgia Meloni's likely new government, League sources said Wednesday.
    Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party won the September 25 general election at the head of an alliance with the League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, putting her in pole position to become Italy's first woman premier.
    A leading FdI MP, Fabio Rampelli, said earlier he had not heard of any rumoured vetoes against Salvini getting the interior ministry, a post he filled from 2018 to 2019, standing out by denying access to Italian ports for NGO run migrant rescue ships. He is on trial for allegedly kidnapping migrants in one of these cases.
    The League sources said Wednesday that Salvini had spent all day talking to representatives of Italian industry, commerce and agriculture, with the talks focusing on the League's priority policy of easing energy bills amid a cost of living crisis.
    If the outgoing government does not take sufficient action on the energy crisis it will have to be the first concern of the incoming administration, said the League sources.
    Salvini is said to be hankering after his old job as interior minister but his position has been weakened by the League's relatively poor performance in the general election, with its vote slipping to 9% from 18% at the last election in 2018, and compared to 26% for FdI, up from 4%.
    He has been tipped as next farm minister, also. (ANSA).