Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni on Sunday claimed victory in a general election, which means she becomes Italy’s first female prime minister, leading the most far-right government since the era of Benito Mussolini.
Addressing the media and citizens in the early hours of Monday morning, Meloni said it was “a night of pride for many and a night of redemption.”
“It’s a victory I want to dedicate to everyone who is no longer with us and wanted this night,” she said. “Starting tomorrow we have to show our value … Italians chose us, and we will not betray it, as we never have,” the newly elected premier said.
According to reports, Ms. Meloni is expected to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two.
Who is Giorgia Meloni?
A deeply committed national conservative since her youth, Meloni grew up in Rome’s Garbatella, an edgy, working-class neighborhood with a strong left-wing tradition. In 1992, a fresh-faced Meloni joined the now-defunct nationalist Social Italian Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) during her teenage days, and, after years of impassioned activism, she entered the Italian political arena.
In 2013, Brothers of Italy — the MSI’s(The Italian social movement) indirect heir — was founded as a party, and Meloni soon controlled the reins of the party after becoming the party chief, taking it from being a minor force squashed between the right-wing coalition’s bigger parties, to the bloc’s biggest force.
Her critics often criticize her that she is the leader of a once small political party, she is inexperienced. Besides, the critics also accuse her party of harboring fascist apologists, a claim she denies.
The 45-year-old also rallies against some of the menaces she perceives as threatening Western civilization, ranging from that of “LGBT lobbies” and “gender ideology” — the existence of which her critics fundamentally contest — and radical Islamism.
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Meloni and her coalition colleague, the Northern League’s Salvini, are often portrayed as Europe’s rebels.
Although, Meloni has not associated herself with fascism, however, her party’s flag includes the symbol of the old pro-Fascist party— the tricolor flame. Two of Mussolini’s descendants, his granddaughter Rachele and his great-grandson Caio Giulio Cesare, have run under the banner of the brothers of Italy.
The Fascist History Of Italy:
The political crisis of the postwar years provided an opportunity for militant, patriotic movements, including those of ex-servicemen and former assault troops, students, ex-syndicalists, and former pro-war agitators. D’Annunzio in Fiume led one such movement, but the ex-Socialist journalist Benito Mussolini soon became even more prominent, founding his fasci di combattimento (“fighting leagues”), better known as Fascists, in Milan in March 1919, says a report by Britannica.
What Lies For Meloni?: Meloni is likely to have a great deal of freedom to implement her party’s agenda with backing from Italy’s other right-wing parties.
“The far-right Brothers of Italy and the League are the two main ideological drivers of the right-wing coalition, so we should expect an additional crackdown on migration policies and the rights of minorities (especially LGBTQI+ people), and in all likelihood, further barriers to accessing abortion, when Meloni comes to power,” American journalist Jeanine Ferris Pirro was quoted saying by Vox.
According to the political author, Pietro Castelli Gattinara, “Meloni’s most salient political characteristic is her nationalism, highlighted with a nostalgic “traditionalism” that ties in her anti-migration, anti-equality, and debatably euroskeptic ideologies”.
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