The start for the trajectory that could culminate with the arrival of Giorgia Meloni to the post of Prime Minister of Italy, the first woman as head of government of the third economy of the European Union, was given almost three years ago, in October 2019.
At a rally in Rome, along with the same two allies accompanying her in the September 25 election race — Matteo Salvini, of the League, and Silvio Berlusconi, of Força, Italia — Meloni took the stage to address an audience. of about 50 thousand people.
With his strong voice, sometimes shouting, he presented the essence of his flags. He spoke out against immigration, the Islamization of Europe, adoption by homosexuals, the legalization of drugs, tax evasion by multinationals, web giants, the Chinese and against Italian submission to the interests of France and Germany. “I’m Giorgia. A woman, a mother, a Christian.”
It was such an emblematic speech that Meloni herself considers it a turning point. “I couldn’t have foreseen that those words could have such a huge echo,” she wrote in the autobiography released in 2021, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies and for weeks on the bestseller list.
At that time, Italy had just experienced the umpteenth fall of government. Salvini had forced the collapse of the coalition with the populist 5 Star Movement (M5S), which supported then-premier Giuseppe Conte.
Political forces reorganized, and Conte set up a new government, now with the center-left Democratic Party. The far-right League left the government with 36.8% in polls, its peak since the election in 2018. The Brothers of Italy, founded by Meloni in 2012, added up to 6.4%.
After that 2019 speech, the curves of the two parties — and the images of their leaders — began to trace opposing dynamics. The League has plummeted to the current 13.7%, and the Irmãos da Itália occupies the first place, with 23.3%.
“She took advantage of the crisis in the League and the image of Salvini, who is an unprepared, reckless character who continually changes his mind”, says political scientist Sofia Ventura, a professor at the University of Bologna. “Meloni replaced that with a very effective and convincing image. She is more prepared, studious, coherent and not impulsive.”
In addition, while Salvini returned to compose, in early 2021, the parliamentary majority in support of Mario Draghi, further confusing his electorate, Meloni has always remained in the opposition.
Last Wednesday (27), the two, along with Berlusconi, confirmed the right-wing alliance that will contest the elections, brought forward a few months after Draghi lost support in the three-party parliament and resigned. The nomination of the name that will replace him will be made by the party that obtains the most votes, according to an agreement announced by the leaders. Today, according to polls, it is likely that the decision will be made by the only woman of the trio.
Giorgia Meloni, 45, was born in Rome and grew up in the popular neighborhood of Garbatella. According to the book, she lived a childhood with limited money, in which she and her older sister were raised only by their mother, with the help of their grandparents. Her father, when she was still small, moved to the Canary Islands, Spain.
The passages on private life are accompanied by passages in which Meloni expresses his political convictions. She narrates in detail that her mother, already in a deteriorated relationship, came to plan to terminate the pregnancy, having given up on the abortion shortly before the necessary clinical examinations.
Pages later, she reinforces: “Despite the absence of my father, I had a family that gave me all the love I needed. I say this because, while defending the natural family founded on marriage – I believe that the State should encourage the most solid form of union possible, for the children—, I am a witness of how, even in a family without one of the parents, it is possible to grow up happy”.
His entry into politics took place early, at the age of 15, when Italy was experiencing the most troubled months of Operation Clean Hands, which in 1992 revealed the involvement of the political system in corruption schemes and which had the effect of ending the main traditional parties. .
Meloni was chosen by the youth section of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded in 1946 by members of the last years of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. “The MSI was oblivious to the thievery and corruption that we saw uncovered,” writes Meloni, who claims to have made the decision “out of pure instinct.”
It is from this prologue that analysts and historians identify it sometimes as a post-fascist policy, a term used to define the movement that derived from fascism and that sought dialogue with moderate conservative right forces, sometimes as neo-fascist, in which the period continues as an inspiring ideology. . “It’s an ongoing debate, with the majority leaning towards post-fascism,” says political analyst Valerio Alfonso Bruno, a member of the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right in the UK.
In addition to previous experiences and the participation of allies in events that commemorate fascism dates, another argument lies in the Brothers of Italy logo, a flame with the three colors of the flag, inherited from the MSI. “The relationship with fascism is never dealt with directly. But if she and the party really wanted to eliminate this ambiguity, why keep the flame in the logo?”, asks Bruno.
In an analysis published this week, Ventura writes that, according to academic definitions, the Brothers of Italy fall between the extreme right, hostile to democracy, and the radical right, which accepts some fundamental democratic rules but opposes elements such as the tutelage of the Rule of law. “But that there is an emotional and symbolic link, if not with fascism, certainly with the post-fascist party, is undeniable”, he tells Sheet.
After years as a militant of the student movement, in which she perfected the rhetoric of clear and forceful words that surround her speeches, Meloni was elected, at age 29, as a federal deputy, by the National Alliance party, formed by members of the MSI. Soon, she assumed one of the vice-presidencies of the Chamber, House in which she is currently in her fourth term.
Two years later, she became the youngest minister in the country, taking over the youth portfolio under the fourth Berlusconi government (2008-2011). At the time, her party merged with Força, Italia, of the then prime minister, with the name of People of Liberty. In 2012, motivated by Berlusconi’s political decline, she created her own association. With around 130,000 members, the Brothers of Italy have 21 seats in the Senate and 37 in the Chamber.
The party’s political message is similar to that of other populist radical-right parties in Europe, such as the National Rally, by French Marine Le Pen. Nationalist speech, with an emphasis against immigration, in addition to the propagation of conspiracy theories, such as the one that defends the existence of a “globalist” economic elite that seeks to replace the lower classes with low-paid immigrants.
In the 2019 speech, she stated that Italian identity is based on “God, homeland and family”. Meloni has an almost 6-year-old daughter with a partner, a TV journalist.
According to the Ipsos Institute’s early July estimate, the composition of the Brothers of Italy supporters follows the average profile of the Italian voter. Its base has more men, more people between 50 and 64 years old, less educated, more salaried workers and middle class.
While he strives to present a more moderate tone in recent interviews with traditional media, he reserves the most extreme positions for social media, such as the proposal to impose a naval blockade in the Mediterranean to reduce irregular immigration.
Despite having Eurosceptic positions, in recent weeks he has repeated that, if he reaches the government, he intends to maintain support for Ukraine and the Western alliance, despite, in the past, collecting praiseful references to Russian Vladimir Putin and illiberal Hungarian Viktor Orbán.
In addition to uncertainties regarding possible economic and international decisions, analysts point to the fragility of his party to assume top-level positions. “The big limit is not having capable people around. Due to incompetence and a vision of people who don’t deeply recognize themselves in the Rule of Law, something they don’t even know what it means”, says Ventura.
