A senior Meloni Justice official resigns due to his links with the mafia and worsens the crisis after his referendum failure

Delmastro, one of the heavyweights of the governing party Brothers of Italy, led by Meloni, remained until 2023 a participation in a company which manages the Roman restaurant Bisteccheria d’Italia, registered in the name of the daughter of Mauro Caroccia, convicted of crimes linked to the Senese mafia clan.

Although he assured that he had sold his participation when Italian media brought this information to light, days later it was revealed that it was not true and that he was still linked to the mafia.

“I have always fought against crime, even with concrete and important results, and although I have not done anything wrong, I have made an oversight that I have corrected as soon as I realized it,” Delmastro said in a statement.

Delmastro’s resignation puts an end to months of resistance, after he was convicted in the first instance last February to eight months in prison and one year of disqualification from public office for revealing official secrets to attack the opposition.

The crisis in the Meloni Government worsens with another resignation, the chief of staff of the Ministry of Justice, Giusi Bartholomewi, after comparing the judiciary to “a firing squad” during a television debate in the referendum campaign.

“I appeal to all citizens who suffer under their skin (the judges). Vote yes and we will get rid of this judiciary that acts as a firing squad,” he said in a prime-time program, which unleashed harsh criticism from the entire parliamentary arc of Italy, especially from the opposition, which demanded his immediate dismissal.

According to Italian media, both resignations occurred after a meeting held this Tuesday afternoon in Rome with the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio.

The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, “positively valued” the decisions of Delmastro and Bartolozzi and thanked “the work carried out with dedication”, in a note released by her press office.

The Minister of Tourism is also on the tightrope, Daniela Santanché, that processed last January by business fraud and falsification of financial information between 2016 and 2022 at Visibilia, a business conglomerate of which she herself was among the managers.

Given this, one’s own This Tuesday, Meloni publicly requested his resignation.

This request is unusual in Italian politics, especially after months of resignation demands from the opposition that the minister has systematically ignored.

In July 2023, a first attempt by the opposition to remove her failed, thanks to the votes of the three Government parties (Brothers of Italy, the League and Forza Italia), while last April a second motion of censure did not go ahead either.