{"id":268,"date":"2026-03-30T07:14:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/268\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:14:20","slug":"referendum-defeat-brings-italys-meloni-crashing-down-to-earth-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/268\/","title":{"rendered":"Referendum defeat brings Italy\u2019s Meloni crashing down to earth \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elly Schlein, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said: \u201cWe will beat [Meloni] in the next general election, I\u2019m sure of that. I think that from today\u2019s vote, from this extraordinary democratic participation, an unexpected participation in some ways, a clear political message is being sent to Meloni and this government, who must now listen to the country and its real priorities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, leader of the populist 5Star Movement heralded \u201ca new spring and a new political season.\u201d Angelo Bonelli , leader of the Greens and Left Alliance, told reporters the result was \u201can important signal for us because it shows that there is a majority in the country opposed to the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Parallel mafia\u2019 <\/p>\n

The referendum itself centered on changes to how judges and prosecutors are governed and disciplined, including separating their career paths and reshaping their oversight bodies. The government framed the reforms as a long-overdue opportunity to fix a system where politicized legal \u201cfactions\u201d impede the government\u2019s ability to implement core policies on issues such as migration and security. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio called prosecutors a \u201cparallel mafia,\u201d while his chief of staff compared parts of the judiciary to \u201can execution squad.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A voter is given a ballot at a polling station in Rome, Italy, on March 22, 2026. | Riccardo De Luca\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s opponents viewed the defeated reforms differently, casting them as an attempt to weaken a fiercely independent judiciary and concentrate power. That framing helped turn a technical vote into a broader political contest, one that opposition parties were able to rally around.<\/p>\n

It was a clash with a long and bitter political history. The Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) investigations of the 1990s, which wiped out an entire political class, left a legacy of mistrust between politicians and the judiciary. The right, in particular, accused judges of running a left-wing vendetta against them.<\/p>\n

Under Meloni\u2019s rule that tension has repeatedly resurfaced, with her government clashing with courts, saying judges are thwarting initiatives to fight migration and criminality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elly Schlein, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said: \u201cWe will beat [Meloni] in the next general election,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[314,315,316,317,318,319,320,321,322,323,324,325,326,327,328,5,329,330,331,332,175,333,334,335,336,337,338,339,340,341,342,343],"class_list":{"0":"post-268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-algeria","9":"tag-career","10":"tag-cement","11":"tag-cooperation","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-elly-schlein","16":"tag-energy","17":"tag-foreign-policy","18":"tag-fuels","19":"tag-giorgia-meloni","20":"tag-giuseppe-conte","21":"tag-history","22":"tag-italian-politics","23":"tag-italy","24":"tag-judiciary","25":"tag-matteo-renzi","26":"tag-media","27":"tag-migration","28":"tag-milan","29":"tag-parliament","30":"tag-pensions","31":"tag-referendum","32":"tag-rights","33":"tag-rule-of-law","34":"tag-security","35":"tag-sergio-mattarella","36":"tag-social-media","37":"tag-united-states","38":"tag-war","39":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}