Giorgia Meloni: Italy’s far right on course to win election

By Paul Kirby
Rome

Ms Meloni said Italians had sent a clear message calling for a right-wing government

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has claimed victory in Italy’s election, and is on course to become the country’s first female prime minister.

Ms Meloni is widely expected to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two.

That will alarm much of Europe as Italy is the EU’s third-biggest economy.

However, speaking after the vote, Ms Meloni said her Brothers of Italy party would “govern for everyone” and would not betray people’s trust.

“Italians have sent a clear message in favour of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy,” she told reporters in Rome.

She is predicted to win up to 26% of the vote, based on provisional results, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left.

Ms Meloni’s right-wing alliance – which also includes Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia – now looks to have control of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with a projected 42.2% of the Senate vote.

But the decision on who becomes Italy’s next leader is up to the president, not Giorgia Meloni, and that will take time.

People stand next to a poster of Enrico Letta, secretary of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), at the PD headquarters, during the snap election, in Rome, Italy, September 25, 2022 — There was little cause for joy at Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday night

Although she has worked hard to soften her image, emphasising her support for Ukraine and diluting anti-EU rhetoric, she leads a party rooted in a post-war movement that rose out of dictator Benito Mussolini’s fascists.

Earlier this year she outlined her priorities in a raucous speech to Spain’s far-right Vox party: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”

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