Who Is Giorgia Meloni, Admirer of Former Dictator Benito Mussolini, Who Could Become Prime Minister of Italy

Brothers of Italy, the post-fascist party led by Meloni, could govern alongside Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, following early elections on September 25, amid the disorganization of center-left groups, write La Repubblica and Reuters.

The rise of the extremist group is largely due to the skills of the 45-year-old politician, commentators say.

Success in politics from a young age

Meloni won her first local elections at 21 and became the country’s youngest minister at 31 when she was given the youth portfolio in Berlusconi’s 2008 government.

In his 2021 autobiography, I Am Giorgia, Meloni says he found a new family at the age of 15 when he joined a local youth branch of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the post-fascist group created in 1946 by supporters of dictator Benito Mussolini.

Hard-working and energetic, she quickly attracted the attention of party activist Fabio Rampelli, who organized courses to train what he hoped would be a new generation of conservative politicians.

The MSI was incorporated into a new grouping called the National Alliance (AN) in the mid-1990s, before merging with a majority conservative group created by former Prime Minister Berlusconi.

But Meloni and a number of AN veterans left Berlusconi in 2012 and founded the current party, Brothers of Italy, which takes its name from the opening lines of the national anthem.

Accusations of fascist leanings

The party has kept the image of the flame, the MSI symbol, in its logo, and the Italian press occasionally publishes photos showing fascist symbols in the offices of regional party politicians. There are no such objects in Meloni’s office, writes Reuters.

Meloni herself rejects any suggestion that her party is nostalgic for the fascist era.

She has distanced herself from a teenage video released this month in which she spoke in French praising Mussolini, an ally of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in World War II.

I think Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy. There has not been another politician like him in the last 50 years

Giorgia Meloni, in an interview for France 3, 1996:

“Obviously, now I have a different opinion,” she returned the other day, after the recording circulated extensively in the public space in Italy.

If elected, Meloni will be Italy’s first female head of government. Given his politics, many Italian feminists are not too thrilled.

Eurosceptic but cautious

Opinion polls say the secret to Meloni’s success is his apparent refusal to compromise.

The decision made the Brothers of Italy the only major opposition party and gave it the opportunity to distance itself from unpopular decisions during the COVID crisis.

A possible government with Salvini and Berlusconi could prove difficult, however, and could push Meloni to enough compromises.

The politician has moderated her speech recently, reflecting the more positive view of Italians towards Brussels after the launch of the post-COVID recovery fund (PNRR). Rome will be its biggest beneficiary.

In opposition, Meloni supported Draghi’s hardline stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, often appearing to be more critical of Moscow than some of the coalition members.

Although the League and Forza Italia were part of Draghi’s government, Berlusconi has long had warm personal ties to Vladimir Putin, while Salvini has also been an admirer of the Russian president.

In recent years, she met with ideological allies such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or Donald Trump’s ally, strategist Steve Bannon, convicted of obstruction of justice, and expressed her admiration for the former American president.

Sunday’s vote

Italians elect two houses of parliament, the Chamber and the Senate, and under the new regulations their size has been reduced by a third, so that the Chamber has 400 seats and the Senate 200.

This is likely to help the winning alliance the most, coupled with Italy’s mixed electoral system. More than a third of seats are won through a British-style “first-come-first-served” constituency contest, and more than 60% through proportional representation.

The president of the “Brothers of Italy” party leads in the polls with almost 25% of voting intentions.

Even though the Brothers of Italy are at the top of the polls, and Giorgia Meloni’s allies give her an outright majority, they don’t decide who will be prime minister. The task falls to President Mattarella, supported by the parliament, which plays an important role in Italy’s constitution.

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