For the first time since 1945, a post-fascist party could govern Italy. After Sweden, the far right is making a new breakthrough in Europe with the victory of Giorgia Meloni in the Italian legislative elections this Sunday.
Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) won between 22 and 26% of the vote, becoming the country’s leading party, while its coalition partners, Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and the conservative Forza Italia (FI) of Silvio Berlusconi, respectively collected between 8.5 and 12.5% and between 6 and 8% of the votes, according to the poll of the Opinio institute for Rai.
The coalition it forms with the other far-right party, the League of Matteo Salvini, and Forza Italia, the conservative party of Silvio Berlusconi, would thus win up to 47% of the vote and with the complex game of constituencies, should secure an absolute majority seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The coalition has a “clear advantage both in the House and in the Senate”, rejoiced on Twitter Matteo Salvini.
If these results were confirmed, FdI and the League would win together “the highest percentage of votes ever recorded by far-right parties in the history of Western Europe from 1945 to the present”noted the Italian Center for Electoral Studies (CISE).
The formation founded at the end of 2012 by Giorgia Meloni with dissidents from Berlusconism is ahead of Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party (PD), which failed to raise a useful vote to block the far right and only won between 17 and 21%. The 5 Star Movement (M5S, ex-antisystem) obtained between 13.5 and 17.5% of the vote, down from its historic score of more than 30% in 2018.
In pole position to become the first female head of government, Giorgia Meloni, a 45-year-old Roman, who young activist said he admired Mussolinihas managed to de-demonize its image and unite in its name the fears and anger of millions of Italians in the face of soaring prices, unemployment, the threat of recession or the neglect of public services.
Immigration, European Union, family
With his two allies MM. Salvini and Berlusconi, she promises tax cuts, the blocking of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, as well as an ambitious family policy to boost the birth rate in an aging country. Giorgia Meloni warned Brussels that she would demand to review the terms of Italy’s relationship with the EU: “The party is over, Italy will start defending its national interests”, she warned. It calls in particular for a reform of the stability pact and the renegotiation, to take account of inflation, of the colossal aid of 190 billion euros granted by its European partners to the third largest economy in the euro zone to revive itself after the pandemic.
Europeans are also alarmed by positions on social issues of “La Meloni”, as it is known in Italy, whose motto is “God, family, homeland”, and who is close to Hungarian Prime Minister Vitkor Orban.
This earthquake comes two weeks after the one which, in Sweden, saw the victory of a conservative bloc including the Democrats of Sweden (SD), party from the neo-Nazi movement which achieved a strong breakthrough, becoming the first right-wing formation in the Nordic country. SD and FdI are part of the same group in the European Parliament.
Governance difficult to come
Whatever the Italian government resulting from the elections, which will not take office until the end of October at the earliest, its path already appears to be strewn with pitfalls and without much room for manoeuvre. In particular, he will have to manage the crisis caused by galloping inflation, while Italy is already crumbling under a debt representing 150% of GDP, the highest ratio in the euro zone behind Greece. In this country with chronic governmental instability, the experts already agree on the short life expectancy of the victorious coalition, a marriage of convenience between three allies with competing ambitions.
Ms. Meloni, with no government experience apart from an ephemeral stint at the youth ministry (2008-2011), will have a lot to do to manage your cumbersome alliesmuch more experienced: Silvio Berlusconi has been head of government several times and Matteo Salvini, interior minister and deputy prime minister.
In the Ukrainian file, Europe and the allies of Italy, a member of NATO, will also scrutinize the distribution of portfolios between the three parties. Because if Giorgia Meloni is an Atlanticist and supports the sanctions against Moscow, Mr. Salvini opposes them.