Giorgia Meloni of Italy is far-right leader, does that make her dangerous?

A party with neo-fascist roots, the Brothers of Italy, won the most votes in Italy's national elections and appears poised to hand over the country's first far-right-led government since World War II and convert its leader Giorgia Meloni, the first woman from Italy. Premier, near-final results shown on Monday.

Italy's lurch to the far right immediately changed Europe's geopolitical reality, putting a eurosceptic party in a position to lead a founding member of the European Union and its third-largest economy.

The electoral result in Italy, with the victory of a centre-right coalition, has generated a strong shake in Europe and in the world. That Giorgia Meloni, an admirer of Benito Mussolini and leader of a post-fascist party, has won the elections in coalition with right-wing parties shows how extreme right-wing and populist governments are coming to power in the Old Continent.

Meloni, almost certainly the new prime minister, has promoted rapprochement with Russia in its war with Ukraine, she is an outspoken critic of the European Union and promotes the restriction of guaranteed individual rights. Uncertain times are coming for Italy.

Who is Giorgia Meloni?

Meloni, born in 1977, joined the youth wing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement party when she was 15 to oppose the far-left terror that hit Italy during that time. She later headed the student branch of the far-right National Alliance, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament in 2006 and became Italy's youngest minister two years later.

At the age of 31, she assumed the youth portfolio in the Berlusconi government. Ten years ago, Meloni founded the Brothers of Italy, which she has led since 2014. In 2020, she also became president of the European Conservative and Reform Party, which includes, among others, the ruling Polish PiS party.

Meloni addressed the election campaign with the populist slogan "Italy and the Italian people first!" She has called for more benefits for the family, less European bureaucracy, low taxes and a stop to immigration.

She wants to renegotiate the EU treaties and her party rejects abortion and same-sex marriage. In terms of economic and foreign policy, the trained language secretary is relatively inexperienced. She has spent most of her political career as a member of parliament and a party official.

Giorgia Meloni tweet

“I am Giorgia Meloni, I am a woman, I am a mother and it is very likely that I will become, at 45, the first president of the Council in Italy. If Berlusconi and Salvini don't budge, of course. And I want to greet with good peace those who consider me a fascist or those who, even abroad, are already afraid of what I am going to do, ”she wrote sometime later on her Twitter account. It is clear that she knew what she was doing and what she wanted.

Famous for her radical right-wing positions

Meloni has been active in the extreme right since she was 15 years old when she joined the Youth Front of the Italian Social Movement, MSI, the party founded in 1947 by the elite survivors of the Italian Social Republic in northern Italy, under the guidance of Giorgio Almirante, former minister of the Duce. When the MSI dissolved after Almirante's death, Meloni went over to Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance, which was the continuation of the traditional fascist movement. There she became a journalist for related media and when the alliance no longer had oxygen, the young Meloni founded Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) in 2012, always in the same line of succession.

At the age of 29, she was first elected to the House of Representatives and quickly became famous for her radical right-wing positions on immigration, LGBT rights and abortion. Two years later she became Minister of Youth in the Berlusconi government. And she has been building the political scaffolding ever since to replace the old guard on the right.

She was even taking her group into forced restraint. Meloni instructed her affiliates not to make more extreme statements, no reference to fascism and, above all, not to use the “Roman salute”, with the right arm extended.

Not even a recent report by the Hungarian parliament's economic watchdog, which warned that a rise in female graduates and female representation in the workforce disadvantages men, threatens population growth and the economy, did Meloni will question her support for Orbán.

Furthermore, the enthusiasm she shows for Hungary's economic policies, especially her single tax, betrays her naivety and should alert to a financial collapse in Italy during her tenure.

Radical self-confidence

Meloni has remained calm amid harsh criticism from the left political camp. Ginevra Bompiani, a writer, told La7 television that "Meloni is a real idiot…she is surrounded by Nazis." To which Meloni responded on Facebook that she was tired of being portrayed as "the black one."

Her opponents, she said, are only desperate because she is so successful. Associating her with Mussolini, Hitler or Putin is ridiculous, she said. "After all, I support Ukraine."

In a television interview, she once told her critics to take a look at France and Germany, where far-right populist parties have been successful and no one made a scandal out of it. "Why should it be any different in Italy?" The German party Meloni referred to is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which lost votes in the 2021 federal election and hovered around just over 10% of the vote.

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