Regional elections in Italy buttress the government

IT IS PROBABLY the most famous of modern Italian political aphorisms. “Power wears out those who do not have it,” quipped the late Giulio Andreotti, a long-serving prime minister. His words had a special relevance this week for Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing Northern League, as he pondered the results of his second big miscalculation in five months. On January 26th the League’s candidate for governor failed to conquer the region of Emilia-Romagna in a vote that Mr Salvini had touted as a referendum on whether he should lead Italy.

Mr Salvini has only been out of power since August last year. Until then he was one of two deputy prime ministers in the first cabinet of Giuseppe Conte, a technocrat; he wielded a decisive influence over policy as head of the party that has led in the polls since mid-2018. But then he torpedoed the coalition government in a bid to force an election, hoping it would give him an outright parliamentary majority and untrammelled powers. His rivals responded by forming a new coalition without him.