Santanchè steps down following pressure from Meloni amid the fallout from the defeat of the justice referendum.
Italian tourism minister Daniela Santanchè resigned on Wednesday afternoon, bringing to a close a political and judicial saga that had weighed on the right-wing government of premier Giorgia Meloni for more than two years.
The development came the day after the resignations of justice undersecretary Andrea Delmastro and the chief of staff of the justice ministry, Giusi Bartolozzi, in the wake of the defeat of a high-stakes judicial referendum which Meloni had backed.
On Tuesday evening Meloni welcomed the resignations of Delmastro and Bartolozzi before calling on Santanchè to do the same, in a move widely seen as ridding the government of figures with ongoing legal troubles.
Santanchè, 64, is a senior member of Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party and has been embroiled in significant legal challenges, causing a headache for Meloni. She had faced a motion of no confidence next Monday.
“Dear Giorgia, I submit my resignation, as you officially requested”, Santanchè said in a statement, emphasising that to date her “criminal record is spotless” and adding: “I won’t hide a sense of bitterness over the outcome of my ministerial career, but in my life I’m used to paying my own bills and often those of others as well.”
Legal woes
The reckoning came after the preliminary hearing for the case of alleged fraud against INPS, the national social security institute.
Santanchè was accused of having improperly obtained ocvid furlough payments for Visibilia employees who, according to prosecutors, had continued working throughout the pandemic.
This had always been the line she drew in public: if referred to trial over the alleged covid wage subsidy fraud, she would “certainly” take a step back.
Her legal troubles had multiplied steadily over the preceding months.
The minister was already on trial for false accounting, and under investigation for two separate counts of bankruptcy fraud, one tied to the collapse of Ki Group, of which she had been president and legal representative, and another relating to Bioera, a biofood company that went bankrupt at the end of 2024.
According to the liquidator’s report, Bioera had accumulated a negative net worth, a financial hole estimated at around €8 million.
End of an era at the tourism ministry
The opposition had long since run out of patience. The centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) had described her continued presence in government as “an affront to the institutions of the Republic,” demanding that Meloni stop stalling.
The Movimento 5 Stelle senator Ketty Damante declared last month that “every day that passed without [Santanchè’s] resignation was a day lost for the credibility of the institutions.”
Meloni, until now, had maintained a policy of public silence on the matter.
The prime minister had been reluctant to push for Santanchè’s exit publicly, not wanting to undermine her party’s image as a defender of the presumption of innocence, or to contradict her stance on similar cases involving other members of the coalition.
But the atmosphere shifted decisively after the referendum result and the rapid-fire departures of Delmastro and Bartolozzi. Meloni had sensed the need to renew her cabinet and shed the political embarrassment of ongoing judicial proceedings.
Santanchè served as tourism minister since the formation of the Meloni government in October 2022.
In addition to her high-profile legal cases, she will be remembered by many for the widely panned Open to Meraviglia campaign based on a reinterpretation of Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Venus’ as a pizza-eating influencer.
Her exit is defined by the long shadow of the courts, and by a sense, shared even among her allies, that the step back came far too late.
The name of her successor is expected to be announced by Palazzo Chigi within the coming hours.
Photo credit: Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock.com
