Forza Italia in Crisis: What the Turmoil Inside Italy's Centre-Right Party Really MeansIt began, as these things often do in Italian politics, with a letter. Fourteen of Forza Italia's twenty senators signed a document calling for the removal of Maurizio Gasparri as the party's Senate group leader. They gave him roughly 48 hours to manage his exit. He took the hint. On Thursday Gasparri resigned, saying he had made the decision independently. He will be replaced by Stefania Craxi, after 14 of the party's 20 senators wrote demanding he be removed. That is the surface of the story. Beneath it, something more significant is happening to one of Italy's most consequential centre-right parties. What Is Forza Italia and Why Does It Matter? For readers unfamiliar with Italian politics, a brief introduction. Forza Italia was founded in 1994 by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi at a moment when Italy's entire postwar political system had collapsed under corruption scandals. Berlusconi named it after a football chant, built it like a corporation, and used it to dominate Italian centre-right politics for nearly three decades. It advocated lower taxes, a market-oriented economy, strong Atlanticism, and pro-European positions that distinguished it from the more nationalist instincts of its coalition partners. Berlusconi died in June 2023. He left behind a party that had always been, at its core, a vehicle for one man's political career, and a question nobody had been able to answer: what is Forza Italia without Berlusconi? Antonio Tajani, the former President of the European Parliament and current Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was appointed interim leader and then formally elected party secretary. He has held the coalition together, maintained Forza Italia's place in the Meloni government, and represented the moderate, pro-European wing of the Italian right in cabinet. By most measures, he has done the job competently. And yet the crisis that erupted this week suggests that competence, in the post-Berlusconi era, is not enough. What Triggered the Current Crisis The immediate cause is the constitutional referendum on judicial reform that Italy voted on earlier this month. The so-called Nordio reform, which proposed separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors, was a historic cause for Forza Italia: Berlusconi himself had spent decades arguing that the Italian judiciary was politically biased against him, and the separation of careers was the party's answer. Forza Italia had invested heavily in the referendum, which it considered a battle against unjust justice to be fought in the name of and in continuity with the founder. The referendum failed. The defeat was a blow not just to government policy but to the party's sense of its own identity and mission. In its aftermath, resignations followed across the coalition. Inside Forza Italia specifically, the result triggered something that had been building for months: a confrontation between those who want to move on and those who want to know who is actually in charge. The push against Gasparri was reportedly inspired directly by Marina Berlusconi, who had for months been calling for a change of the group leaders in both Chamber and Senate. Among those who signed the letter calling for his removal were ministers Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati and Paolo Zangrillo, the Deputy Minister of Justice Francesco Paolo Sisto, and the undersecretary to the presidency of the council Alberto Barachini. This was not a fringe rebellion. It involved serving members of government. The Shadow of Marina Berlusconi Any serious account of Forza Italia's current turmoil has to reckon with Marina Berlusconi, the founder's eldest daughter and president of the Fininvest and Mondadori business empire. She is not a politician. She holds no party office. And yet her interventions in the party's affairs have, over the past year, become the single most closely watched signal of where Forza Italia is heading. Marina Berlusconi has been pushing Tajani to open "a new phase" within Forza Italia, with Tajani replying that "renewal is already underway." But it is clear that the family continues to push for something else. Each of Marina's and Pier Silvio's public outings has not only outlined the axes of a "liberal manifesto" but also added to the pressure on the current leader.  The language she has used about Tajani is the language of elegant farewells. "I think that to Tajani, we Forza Italia voters should only express gratitude and appreciation for what he has done and continues to do. He has held the party together in a very delicate moment. Now inevitably a new phase begins," she told Corriere della Sera.  Whether that constitutes a farewell or an encouragement is the question every senior figure in the party is currently trying to answer. The most attentive observers consider the message from the Cavaliere's daughter as a sign that Tajani's leadership has had its day, as if the vice-premier and foreign minister were considered a very able ferryman in view of a new season, led by a more appealing profile.  Who Are the Potential Successors? Two names circulate consistently in discussions of Forza Italia's future leadership. Roberto Occhiuto, the popular governor of Calabria, has made his ambitions reasonably clear. Occhiuto was the first in the party to comment on Marina Berlusconi's "lucid reflections," relaunching the need for a "liberal and reformist" shake-up that draws on the heritage of European liberalism. His self-candidacy is clear: "I will continue to work for this, within the party and within the coalition." Deborah Bergamini, the party's national deputy secretary, has also been mentioned as a possible replacement for the Chamber group leader Paolo Barelli, partly to meet the demands of those who consider the leadership group too "Roman" and too "Roman-centric." That last phrase matters in the context of a party whose traditional strength lies in northern Italy and which has always had to manage the tension between its Roman institutional presence and its electoral base further north. Tajani himself has not indicated any intention of stepping down. In a post on X following the Gasparri resignation, he wrote: "Forza Italia is a vibrant party, a point of reference for all those Italians who identify with the values of freedom. We are not afraid of democracy; we are not afraid of engaging with the people. Forza Italia, following in the footsteps and legacy of Silvio Berlusconi, will never lose its way."  It is the language of a leader who knows the ground is shifting and is determined not to show it. What This Means for the Meloni Government Forza Italia is the smallest of the three parties in Meloni's governing coalition, alongside Brothers of Italy and Lega. Its role has been to provide the moderate, pro-European, business-friendly face of a coalition that might otherwise appear too nationalist for Italian and European institutional comfort. Tajani, as Foreign Minister, has been particularly important in managing Italy's relationships with Brussels and European partners. Internal turbulence in Forza Italia does not, for now, threaten the government's parliamentary majority. The numbers are not in question. What is in question is the coherence and direction of a party that provides the coalition's centrist ballast. A Forza Italia consumed by succession battles is a less effective coalition partner. A Forza Italia that shifts its identity in the direction of Marina Berlusconi's liberal manifesto could also eventually reshape its relationship with the more nationalist elements of the coalition. One of Forza Italia's structural problems is its peculiar character as a party that was always, at its core, a vehicle for its founder. The challenge now is to transform it into something that can outlast the man who built it.  What Comes Next Inside Forza Italia, a congress is planned before the 2027 elections at which the party's direction and leadership will be formally contested. Between now and then, two narratives are competing: one of gradual, controlled renewal that leaves Tajani in place while refreshing the faces around him; and one of a deeper reckoning with what the party is for in a post-Berlusconi Italy. The Gasparri resignation, whatever its protagonists say about its voluntary nature, suggests the second narrative is gaining ground. Marina Berlusconi has shaken the tree. The fruit is only beginning to fall. ph: Vincenzo Izzo / Shutterstock.com