What she did not say was that she had been forced to ditch some of her favourite candidates after days of fierce negotiations in order to maintain peace with her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini's League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia.
Investors usually prefer to talk straight to company heads rather than to the government, said the source, who is now a political consultant and asked not to be named.The most surprising appointment was that of the new Enel chief Flavio Cattaneo, a seasoned corporate manager who leaves his role as vice president of high-speed train operator Italo to lead the country's biggest utility., widely seen as Meloni's first choice.
An Enel nominations committee, which is responsible for vetting board candidates, was poised to look into Cassese's claim that Donnarumma was not eligible to make the switch from the power grid to the utility, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Davide Tabarelli, the head of energy think-tank Nomisma Energia, said Salvini's backing was crucial for Cattaneo, while Enel's new chairman Paolo Scaroni, a veteran public company manager, owed his appointment to Berlusconi.
"Meloni understood she could not totally dominate, especially now that things within the right-wing bloc might change depending on what happens to Forza Italia," said Eugenio Pizzimenti, a politics professor at Pisa University.
Off course she did