Italy elects anti-LGBT to preside Chamber and Mussolini fan to head Senate

A pro-Russia and anti-LGBTQIA+ politician was elected president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies on Friday, a day after a Mussolini fan became president of the Senate.

The choice of names to command Parliament signals a more radical profile for the virtual government of Giorgia Meloni, despite its attempt to present an image of a moderate during the campaign.

Elected to head the Chamber with 222 votes out of a total of 400, Lorenzo Fontana is affiliated with the Liga, an ultra-right party that is part of the coalition that elected Meloni. A controversial figure in Italy, the 42-year-old politician is known for his socially conservative and Eurosceptic stances. “We need to regain some of the pride of who we are,” he told parliament on Friday.

Catholic and radically against abortion, Fontana has already held the position of Minister of the Family, between 2018 and 2019. During his term in office, he stated that gay families do not exist and that all children must have a father and a mother, in addition to defending that children of same-sex couples born abroad were not recognized in Italy. He also claimed that gay marriage and mass immigration threatened to end Italian traditions.

Fontana has already called for the repeal of an anti-fascist and anti-racist law introduced in 1993 that makes it a crime to propagate ideas based on superiority or racial or ethnic hatred.

He also admires Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he said he considered “a shining light even for us in the West”. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, he has repeatedly called for an end to sanctions imposed by the European Union against Moscow. Years later, in reference to Putin, he said he was “favorably impressed by the great Christian religious awakening seen in his country.”

Senate President Ignazio La Russa, elected this Thursday (13) with 116 votes out of 200, is a historic exponent of the Italian far-right and co-founder of the Brothers of Italy party, along with Giorgia Meloni.

La Russa, 75, was Minister of Defense under Silvio Berlusconi (2008 – 2011) and was vice president of the Senate since 2018.

His connection with Benito Mussolini comes from family, given that his father was secretary of the dictator’s fascist party. La Russa —whose middle name is Benito—began his political career in the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, a party founded in 1946 by admirers of the fascist leader. In a 2018 video, he shows reporters busts, photos, medals and mini-statues of Mussolini that he keeps at home.

Upon taking office, he thanked the votes he received, including those of senators who are not part of the right-wing majority in the house, and said that there should be no fear of changing the Constitution — his party intends to change the country’s political system from parliamentarism to presidentialism.

Italy’s new parliament opened on Thursday, with the appointment of 400 deputies and 200 senators elected at the end of September. “It will be a parliament clearly shifted to the right, with the strongest party at the extreme point,” he told Sheet Donatella Della Porta, professor of political science at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Florence.

Meloni is due to be named prime minister before the end of the month, after being elected by a trio of conservative parties — her own Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s League and Forza Italia, led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Putting together a government, however, is proving more difficult than expected, with Berlusconi particularly furious at Meloni’s refusal to fulfill his requests for top cabinet posts.

Berlusconi’s mood was clear in a photo of a note he wrote to Parliament on Thursday. “Giorgia Meloni, her behavior 1) arrogant, 2) domineering, 3) arrogant, 4) offensive. Unwilling to change, she is someone you can’t get along with,” read the note, whose image spread on social media. social.