Matteo Salvini just had a very bad week. It started with his ill-fated attempt to force his coalition partners to accept a deal to create a bullet train between Lyon, France and Turin and ended with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte eviscerating his manhood and actions on live television during his resignation speech this afternoon. With the bad blood generated between Salvini and Italian majority party Movimiento Cinque Stelle in recent weeks and Conte's fiery disavowal of his policies, Italy's leading coalition has been shattered. In its place, Salvini's rivals - the Italian Democratic Party de facto led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Florence - seem poised to take their place in governing the country.

Things didn't start out this way. After an impressive showing in the Spring European Parliamentary Elections, Salvini's far-right Lega Nord coalition was leading in the polls and widely believed to be stealing their coalition partner's thunder. Rumors spread around Rome that Salvini was plotting to call for a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Conte and petition the President for snap elections. These efforts have largely stalled because of his miserable timing. If he had called for the elections just months earlier, an election could have been organized and Lega Nord would have won in a landslide with more than 30% of the total vote. At the very least, they would take M5S's dominant position at the top of the Italian political food chain. But Salvini forgot about a very mundane, routine need: the Italians must pass a budget by mid-October.

The Italian constitution requires that both Houses of Parliament pass a budget by December 31st, while membership in the European Union requires that they pass one by mid-October. After making himself the Head of Government, Salvini could have easily used a panic around the budget to solidify his own support and leverage its passage to begin Italy's departure from the EU - a longstanding goal of Lega Nord. Instead, Salvini wasted time on a bizarre attempt to slash the number of handsomely-paid legislators in half - a perennial reform proposed by Italian politicians but always viciously opposed by legislators wanting to keep their cushy positions. Instead of using his momentum after the European Parliament elections, Salvini decided to get stuck in a bog. He continued to exacerbate tensions with his coalition partners - his ego seemingly inflated from his strong performance in the prior elections. Then on August 20th, they decided enough was enough. Prime Minister Conte, an independent neutral choice with ties to both Lega Nord and M5S, abruptly cut ties with Salvini and tendered his resignation to President Mattarella.

Italian politics are now almost completely reversed from their equally chaotic situation in 2018. In a prime example of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' former enemies Luigi di Maio of M5S and Matteo Renzi of the Democratic Party are discussing forming a coalition. This is a far cry from 2018, where both parties were at each others throats, and the Movement's founder - comedian Beppe Grillo - publicly insulted Renzi's government. Salvini's own coalition - made up of a variety of xenophobic, rich, Northern parties and factions, is reexamining their relationship with the man now the primary opposition to the government. Salvini made a lot of economic promises to gain their support, and he hasn't delivered in the year he's been in power. Now that he's out, there's isn't a lot of loyalty between the camps.

There are still a couple of uncertainties. President Mattarella - a prominent non-aligned Italian academic prior to his ascension to the Presidency, hates everybody for being incompetent. He was reportedly infuriated when M5S and Lega Nord couldn't figure out how to split power and told them he'd call for new elections if they didn't find a compromise. The Democrats and M5S have very, very little in common - with opposing financial, immigration, and social platforms on top of their former mutual enmity. It is up to Mattarella to allow the pair to form a government or call for new elections. Even further, the de jure Secretary of the Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti, has openly said he'll do everything in his power to prevent a coalition from forming. However, Zingaretti's showing up to the battle without much of an army - Renzi's been controlling everything from the shadows for a year now (prompting speculation that he might use the chaos to go rogue and form his own brand new hybrid M5S/Democratic Party) and he has the loyalty of the party's Senators behind him. In addition to the urgent need to pass a budget on time to reassure foreign investors of Italy's stability - a concern that Mattarella places utmost importance on - and Salvini's threat to cut the Parliament in half, nearly everyone in the Italian Government has every incentive to give the bird to Salvini and form a governing coalition.

Perhaps this is what Salvini always wanted - he's best in the opposition. It's where he doesn't have to prove he's competent at governing, he just has to yell loudly and attend rallies. But considering how his allies in Milan and Veneto are getting cold feet and Rome has soundly rejected him, he'll be nursing his wounds for a while. At the very least, with Salvini thrown out of the government until the official elections in 2023 or snap elections if the M5S and Democrat Alliance fails, there is zero chance of Italian legislators getting their act together and coordinating enough to draft a concerted effort to leave the European Union.

The next couple of weeks will determine whether or not Italian finances will suffer - in an especially bad time considering signs that Germany is slowly entering a recession. If the Left can demonstrate they can pass a budget and collaborate successfully, not only will they rescue Italy's financial standing, but they have a chance of squashing the Italian far-right once and for all. All they have to do is accomplish a feat Italian politicians haven't managed in three decades: govern well.