Giorgia Meloni’s father was a communist, she’s right: will Italy elect her to power today? | politics

The early parliamentary elections have started in Italy. Almost 47 million Italians are called to vote. Is there a shift to the right today?

The clear favorite is a legal alliance from the Fratelli d’Italia party with top candidate Giorgia Meloni (45), as well as the Forza Italia of ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (85) and the Lega of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (49).

The right camp should come to 46 percent!

The centre-left party (PD) around leading candidate Enrico Letta and the 5-star movement led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte are given outsider opportunities, even if pollsters recently saw them on the upswing.

For weeks she has been the center of attention: Giorgia Meloni! But who is the woman that the international press is already comparing to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban?

Meloni claims the post of prime minister for herself should her “brothers of Italy” emerge from the polls as the strongest single party – which is what the forecasts looked like.

It would be the culmination of a career that she began as a teenager. In July 1992, Giorgia Meloni decided to become politically active. At the age of 15 she knocked on the door of a youth organization of the “Movimento Sociale Italiano” (MSI) in Rome, the party founded by fascists after the Second World War.

To the top in a man’s world

Almost exactly 30 years later, Meloni is in the process of bringing the extreme right and nationalism to the top of government in Italy. The fact is: in three decades, the native Roman woman has fought her way past all men and has become the face of the right-wing in Italy.

Father was a communist, mother was a single parent

Why the heirs of the Italian fascists convinced Giorgia, who was born on January 15, 1977, is not entirely clear. Meloni speaks of an instinctive decision.

Interesting detail: She does not want to confirm that the election was related to the communist father, who left the family early. Giorgia and sister Arianna were raised by their mother and grandparents in the working-class Garbatella district of Rome.

Clear statements on fascism? None!

The party became her second family, and Meloni ran for political office at an early age. The MSI was renamed Alleanza Nazionale (AN) and was brought into government for the first time in 1994. Party leader Gianfranco Fini distanced himself from fascism in 2003 and described it as “absolutely evil”.

Meloni has avoided making such a clear statement about the roots of her party to this day. A sign? She broke with her sponsor.

After all: Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator until 1943, is not one of Meloni’s role models. She criticized its racial laws, repression of political opponents, and Italy’s involvement in World War II. But: Meloni also explained that historically he has also created a lot.

Youngest minister of Italian history

In 2006 Meloni was elected to Parliament and two years later became the youngest Minister (Youth and Sport) in the history of Italy. In 2012 she founded Fratelli d’Italia, which, after an enormous increase in recent months, can become the strongest single party in autumn 2022.

“God, Fatherland, Family”

Meloni stands for clearly right-wing positions: She wants to ward off migrants – especially from Africa – and strengthen Italy as a nation state within the EU.

She wants to crack down on crime and build new prisons. Their maxim is “God, fatherland, family”. Meloni has had a daughter (Ginevra) since 2016, but is not married to her father. Homophobic Position: She opposes the right of homosexual couples to adopt children. She is also against abortion – in her biography Meloni writes that she herself was almost aborted by her own mother.

“A certain aversion to Germany

In fact, since the fall of Mario Draghi’s government in July, Meloni has been trying to appear moderate, reliable and even supportive of the state. She sent video messages explaining in English, Spanish and French that concerns abroad were unfounded and that Italy remained a strong partner under her.

She didn’t dare to speak German, she writes with a laughing smiley face. She is clearer in her self-written biography, saying that she has a “certain aversion” to Germany.

Italy first

Critics accuse Meloni of eating chalk. And indeed, the tone became rougher this week. At an election rally in Milan, she called out to supporters that the “fun” was over in Europe. With her at the helm, Italy will again first pursue its own interests and only then think in European terms.

The announcement was not surprising. Meloni wants to “risollevare” Italy, ie to put it back on its feet, as the Fratelli d’Italia election posters say. Memories of Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” are awakened.

In the first sentence of the joint election manifesto, the centre-right announces a foreign policy “focused on the national interest and the defense of the homeland”. Meloni wants EU law to be brought back under national law. She wants strong nation states instead of a union.

More USA, less Brussels

Meloni wants to strengthen the “Atlantic” connection to the USA – Europe is of secondary importance to her. “Yes to the sovereignty of the peoples! No to the bureaucrats in Brussels!” she shouted into the microphone at an event organized by Spain’s far-right Vox party in June.

Friendship with Viktor Orbán

“I assume that the formation of a government led by Giorgia Meloni will change Italy’s role within the European Union. There is much to suggest that blocs could be formed with Hungary, Poland and Italy,” explains former EU Parliament President Martin Schulz (SPD).

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has already been to Rome – Orbán and Meloni are also friends.

Will Putin enjoy Meloni?

Not clear. Meloni herself agreed pro-Russian positions before the war, but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine she has advocated sanctions against Russia and arms sales to Ukraine.

Your possible coalition partner thinks differently. Silvio Berlusconi recently made headlines when he defended Putin. The former Italian prime minister said he was “pushed into” the war against Ukraine by ministers, his party and public opinion in order to install a new government in Kyiv.

And further: The goal was to replace the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyj with “decent people” and then to leave the country again.

However, Meloni has promised to stick to Italy’s previous positions. That would mean: sanctions against Moscow, weapons for Kyiv.