Meloni turns to rap star as referendum risks becoming vote of confidence

Giorgia Meloni has teamed up with a heavily tattooed rapper to rally youth support for a crucial referendum.

The Italian prime minister made a guest appearance on a podcast hosted by Fedez, the country’s most high-profile rapper, in an attempt to persuade young people to turn out and vote.

While the details of the poll – on reforms to to the country’s dysfunctional judiciary – are obtuse, highly technical and poorly understood by most Italians, the result risks becoming a de facto plebiscite on her four years in office.

Ms Meloni hopes to inspire the 13 million Instagram followers of Federico “Fedez” Lucia, who was formerly married to Italy’s most glamorous influencer, the model and entrepreneur Chiara Ferragni.

The reform aims to separate the career paths of public prosecutors and judges, ending the current system in which they can switch roles.

If she loses the vote, to be held on Sunday and Monday, she insists that she will not resign, but it will be a big blow as she prepares to go into campaigning mode for the next general election, which must be called sometime next year.

In an excerpt of the podcast released ahead of the full broadcast on Thursday, the premier was at pains to persuade Italians that the referendum was not about her or her government.

“At the referendum, you won’t be voting on me, you will be voting on the judicial system,” she told Fedez. “Even people who don’t particularly like the government should consider the merits of the reform, which is aimed at improving the functioning of the system.”

The conservative coalition led by Ms Meloni says the reforms will make judges more impartial by cutting their ties with prosecutors, while critics say they are an attempt to increase political control over the courts.

The substance of the referendum may be opaque, but it has generated intemperate language and high emotion on both sides of politics.

For decades, the Italian Right has claimed that judges and magistrates in Italy are biased against them, alleging that they have Left-wing sympathies. Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, railed against what he termed “toghe rosse” – literally, the red togas, which is Italian shorthand for supposedly Communist judges.

Franco Zaffini, a senator from Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, this week described the judiciary as “a cancer” and “an execution squad”, prompting condemnation from opposition parties.

Italy’s foreign minister also waded into the debate, saying the reform would bring Italy in line with other countries by separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors.

The current judicial system was out of step with “all the other democracies of Europe,” said Antonio Tajani. “Italy up until now has been an exception. A system like ours exists only in Russia, China and other dictatorships. The system that we have in Italy was introduced by Mussolini during the Fascist era.”

Polls suggest the result will be close, with the ‘no’ vote possibly edging ahead of the ‘yes’ vote. No quorum is required – even if turnout is low, the majority vote will win.

Opposition parties hope they can land a blow against the prime minister, who has been lauded so far for bringing a rare period of political and economic stability to Italy.

“If we win, the mood in the country will start to change,” said Pierluigi Bersani, a senior figure in the Democratic Party, the main opposition force.

For many voters, the referendum is no longer about the merits of the judicial reform and more about Ms Meloni’s achievements.

“The consultation has drifted far from the merits of judicial design and has become a de facto confidence test on the government’s authority, its capacity to mobilise a distracted electorate behind the ‘yes’ camp, and the internal discipline of the centre-Right coalition,” said Francesco Galietti, the founder of a risk consultancy called Policy Sonar.

“Opinion polls suggest a race that is uncomfortably tight, with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ broadly level and turnout the decisive variable. If the ‘yes’ camp prevails, Meloni will be able to claim a personal and coalition victory.”

If the referendum is rejected, however, Ms Meloni might be tempted to “cut her losses” and request an early election, “to pre-empt a longer period of attrition,” said Mr Galietti.