Italy elections: Giorgia Meloni hails ‘night of
pride’ as exit polls point to far-right coalition victory
The leader of the Brothers of Italy party appears set
to become country’s first female PM
Mon 26 Sep
2022 04.15 BST
Giorgia
Meloni has claimed victory in Italy’s elections and promised to govern for all
Italians, after exit polls gave her rightwing coalition a clear majority,
putting her on course to create the most rightwing government since the end of
the second world war.
With full
results due on Monday, the Brothers of Italy leader is set to become Italy’s
first female prime minister – and a model for nationalist parties across Europe
as she heads one of the EU’s six original member states.
The poll,
for Italian broadcaster Rai, gave the rightwing coalition 41%-45% against
25.5%-29.5% for the leftwing bloc. The populist Five Star Movement was on
13.5%-17.5%.
Meloni’s
party, which has neofascist origins, is also set to scoop by far the biggest
share of the votes within the coalition, which includes the far-right League,
led by Matteo Salvini, and Forza Italia, headed by Silvio Berlusconi.
Early on
Monday morning, projections based on well over half the votes counted put the
Brothers of Italy on almost 26%, up from just 4% in the last national election
in 2018, as voters opted for a largely untried figure to sort out the nation’s
many problems. By contrast, Meloni’s main ally suffered a disastrous night,
with Salvini’s League picking up around 9% of the vote, down from more than 17%
four years ago.
The other
major conservative party, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, also scored around
8%, leaving Brothers of Italy the dominant partner.
On Monday
Meloni said Italian voters had given a clear mandate to the right to form the
next government and called for unity to help confront the country’s many
problems.
“This is a
night of pride for Brothers of Italy, but it is a starting point, not a finish
line,” she said to a crowd of supporters.
“If we are
called upon to govern this nation, we will do so for all Italians, with the aim
of uniting the people, of exalting what unites them rather than what divides
them,” Meloni told reporters. “We will not betray your trust.”
“This is
the time for being responsible,” she said, appearing on live on television and
describing the situation for Italy and the European Union is “particularly
complex”.
Italy’s
main centre-left group, the Democratic party (PD), conceded defeat.
“This is a
sad evening for the country,” Debora Serracchiani, a senior PD lawmaker, told
reporters in the party’s first official comment on the result. “(The right) has
the majority in parliament, but not in the country.”
As
provisional results came in, Italian daily La Stampa headlined its front page
“Italy moves to the right”..
If the exit
polls are correct, the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, is expected to
hand Meloni a mandate to form a government that, if everything goes smoothly,
could be in place by the end of October.
Marco Marsilio,
Brothers of Italy’s president of the central Abruzzo region, said he had been
waiting for this moment all his life. “Twenty or 30 years ago this sounded like
madness, let’s hope God forgives us for this madness,” he told Reuters.
Meloni,
from Rome, began her political career as a youth activist in the neofascist
Italian Social Movement but rejects the idea that her politics are fascist,
arguing that the Italian right consigned fascism to history decades ago.
The
coalition’s expected victory, however, raises questions about the country’s
alliances in Europe as the continent enters a winter likely to be dominated by
high energy prices and its response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Meloni
has sought to send reassuring messages, but the prospect of her as prime
minister is unlikely to be welcomed in Paris or Berlin.
Germany’s
governing Social Democratic party warned last week that her win would be bad
for European cooperation. Lars Klingbeil, the chairman of chancellor Olaf
Scholz’s SPD, said Meloni had aligned herself with “anti-democratic” figures
such as Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
Earlier
this month, Meloni’s MEPs voted against a resolution that condemned Hungary as
“a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”. One of her first messages of
congratulations on Sunday night was from Orbán’s political director, Balázs
Orbán, who said: “In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who
share a common vision and approach to Europe’s challenges.”
Meloni is
also allied to Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party, the
anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats and Spain’s far-right Vox party. She travelled
in the summer to a Vox rally in Marbella, where she expressed her hardline
views on immigration and homosexuality.
The
45-year-old received an endorsement from Vox towards the end of her campaign,
and in response said the two parties were linked by “mutual respect, friendship
and loyalty” while hoping victory for Brothers of Italy would give Vox some
thrust in Spain.
“Meloni has
an ambition to represent a model not only for Italy, but for Europe – this is
something new [for the right in Italy] compared with the past,” said Nadia
Urbinati, a political theorist at New York’s Columbia University and the
University of Bologna. “She has contacts with other conservative parties, who
want a Europe with less civil rights … the model is there, and so is the
project.”
Mattia
Diletti, a politics professor at Rome’s Sapienza University, said Meloni would
win thanks to her ability to be ideological but pragmatic, something that has
allowed her to pip the French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, to the post of
becoming western Europe’s model for nationalism.
However,
she is unlikely to rock the boat, at least at the beginning, as she wants to
secure continuing flows of cash under Italy’s €191.5bn (£166bn) EU Covid
recovery plan, the largest in the EU. The coalition has said it is not seeking
to renegotiate the plan, but would like to make changes.
“Ambiguity
is the key to understanding Meloni,” Diletti said. “She’s really interested in
compromising with the EU on economic politics. But if the EU pushes her too
much on the Italian government, she can always revert back to her safe zone as
being a populist rightwing leader. She will do what she needs to do to stay in
power.”
Salvini’s
potential return to the interior ministry will also dampen hopes for a breakthrough
in the EU’s long-stalled attempt to reform its migration system by sharing
asylum seekers across member states. Salvini, who has close ties with Le Pen,
said he “can’t wait” to resume his policy of blocking migrant rescue ships from
entering Italian ports.
On Ukraine,
Meloni has condemned Russia’s invasion and supported sending weapons to the
war-torn country, but it remains unclear whether her government will back the
eighth round of EU sanctions being discussed in Brussels. Salvini has claimed
the sanctions were bringing Italy to its knees, although he never blocked any
EU measures against Russia when in Mario Draghi’s broad coalition government,
which collapsed in July.
Turnout
fell to a historic low of around 64%, about nine points lower than the last
elections in 2018. There was a steady flow of voters to a booth in Esquilino, a
multicultural district in Rome, on Sunday morning, but the mood was one of
despondency.
“It feels
as if we’re on a rudderless boat,” said Carlo Russo. “All we heard during the
election campaign was an exchange of insults between the various parties rather
than an exchange of ideas. And in moments of confusion such as this, people
vote for the person who seems to be the strongest.”
Fausto
Maccari, who runs a newspaper stand, said he would not vote for the right, but
remained unsure. “The choices are poor,” added Maccari, in his 60s. “For
example, I look at Berlusconi and he reminds me of a comic character. At his
age, he shouldn’t be doing politics. It would be like me, at my age, trying to
be a footballer like Maradona.”
Many
Italians who support Meloni are doing so because she is yet to be tried and
tested in government, and are attracted by her determination and loyalty to her
ideals.
“She
presents herself as a capable, but not arrogant, woman,” said Urbinati. “She
gets things done and is dedicated, but without this masculine adrenaline that
wants power at all costs.”
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