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  "path": "/news/roberto-vannacci-and-his-new-party-futuro-nazionale-rattle-italys-right.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-11T08:18:10.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.wantedinrome.com",
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  "textContent": "Futuro Nazionale shakes up Italy's right-wing landscape and poses a political headache for Giorgia Meloni.\nRoberto Vannacci is rapidly consolidating his new far-right party Futuro Nazionale and in doing so is posing a growing threat to the stability of Giorgia Meloni's governing coalition ahead of the 2027 general election.\n\nThe 57-year-old former army general, who became a political phenomenon with his 2023 self-published polemic Il Mondo al Contrario, first entered electoral politics as a candidate on Matteo Salvini's right-wing Lega ticket for the 2024 European elections.\n\nVannacci, a former paratrooper, gathered more than 530,000 preference votes and became the second most-voted individual candidate in Italy. Salvini subsequently appointed him deputy secretary of the Lega in May 2025, sparking internal tensions and unease within the party ranks.\n\nThe relationship broke down by early February 2026, when Vannacci announced he would strike out independently, registering Futuro Nazionale as a party and simultaneously being ejected from the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament. Salvini called the departure a betrayal.\n\nFuturo Nazionale\nThe new party has grown quickly. Vannacci recently celebrated passing 100,000 members, a remarkable figure for a party yet to contest a national election and one that already surpasses the Lega's own membership.\n\nThe party's constituent assembly is scheduled for 13 and 14 June at the Auditorium della Conciliazione in Rome, where Vannacci has promised to unveil a full programme covering remigration, schools, energy and security.\n\nDefections\nThe flow of parliamentary defections from coalition parties has been the most visible sign of the party's momentum.\n\nAt a press conference in Viareggio last week, Vannacci unveiled five new members: MPs Domenico Furgiuele and Gianangelo Bof from the Lega, and Attilio Pierro and Davide Bergamini from the centre-right Forza Italia, alongside economist and former MEP Antonio Maria Rinaldi, who ended his own Lega career to join the new party.\n\nFuturo Nazionale now counts eight deputies in the chamber. Speaking at the event, Vannacci declared the party unstoppable and said elected officials had been approaching him rather than the reverse: \"It is not us who are going begging - they came to us because they believe in the project.\"\n\nDirty Dozen\nAppearing on the television programme Otto e Mezzo on Wednesday, Vannacci was unapologetic about the nature of his recruits, describing his parliamentary colleagues as the rejects of other parties and invoking the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen: \"My party companions are the leftovers of others, and that suits me fine.\"\n\nHe also rejected the \"far right\" label, calling his project \"authentic right\" while pointedly suggesting that Meloni, whom he placed in the same category, needed to demonstrate her credentials more convincingly.\n\n\"With the prime minister I have many ideas in common. The problem has been in putting them into practice,\" he said, citing numerous proposals he claimed had never been implemented and reforms that had not materialised.\n\nOn the question of alliances, Vannacci was clear that any coalition agreement was not currently on the agenda and would only be negotiated close to the election, subject to his party's non-negotiable positions on security, \"remigration\" and the Green Deal.\n\nReaction\nMeloni has avoided engaging with Vannacci publicly however Giovanni Donzelli - the organisational director of the premier's right-wing Fratelli d'Italia party - has not held back.\n\nSpeaking on the Point Break programme on San Marino RTV on Wednesday evening, Donzelli said: \"I don't see why I should talk about an alliance with someone who is just as against us as the [centre-left] Partito Democratico. Vannacci is among those who would like to bring down the Meloni government\".\n\nMarina Berlusconi, who wields condsiderable influence over the Forza Italia party founded by her late father Silvio Berlusconi, reportedly takes a strongly negative view of Vannacci's politics.\n\nVannacci has responded dismissively, questioning what authority she has to speak for the party given that she holds no political office.\n\nSaverio Romano of Noi Moderati - a small centrist party within the government - described Futuro Nazionale's positions as irreconcilable with the values of the coalition, saying a Europhile vision inspired by Christian democratic traditions had nothing in common with the extremism and isolationism of Vannacci's movement.\n\nNumbers\nThe electoral arithmetic is what is concentrating minds in Palazzo Chigi. Current polling places Futuro Nazionale at around 4.5-4.8 per cent, close to the Lega's 5.7-5.8 per cent, and scenario modelling suggests the centre-right could lose the 2027 election if Vannacci's voters remain outside the coalition.\n\nAmong the decisions most consequential for coalition arithmetic is Milan, where the right has not held the mayoralty in over two decades and is treating the 2027 municipal election as a priority. Vannacci has announced that Futuro Nazionale intends to field its own mayoral candidate, a move that would significantly complicate whatever unity the centre-right attempts to assemble. He has also hinted at running a candidate in Rome's mayoral elections.\n\nAnalysts say that Meloni's calculation - described as equal parts conviction and hope - is that Vannacci's numbers will deflate before polling day.\n\nIn the meantime, the question hanging over Italy's governing coalition is not whether Vannacci will be a factor in the 2027 election but whether Meloni can find a way to contain him, co-opt him or outlast him.\n\nPhoto credit: Francesco Bocchi / Shutterstock.com",
  "title": "Roberto Vannacci and his new party Futuro Nazionale rattle Italy's right"
}