Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Italy’s first female prime minister and the country’s most extreme leader since Benito Mussolini.
In Italian politics, governments are formed via alliances.
So while Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party got nowhere near a majority of votes, help from other parties with shared ambitions could see her lead a government.
However, the make-up of that administration might not be officially known for weeks as wrangling behind closed doors takes place between coalition partners.
The near-final results show that the centre-right coalition netted some 44% of the parliamentary vote during Sunday’s election, with Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy taking 26%.
Her coalition partners divided up the remainder, with the anti-immigrant League for Salvini Premier party winning nearly 9% and the more moderate Forza Italia of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi taking around 8%.
Turnout was at a historic low of 64%, with the public said to have stayed away in protest but also out of disillusionment with the backroom deals used to put the past three Italian governments into power.
What has Giorgia Meloni said about Mussolini?
Benito Mussolini was the fascist dictator who led Italy into the Second World War and formed an alliance with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, before being executed in 1945.
Meloni previously praised Mussolini for what he did for the European country, but has since rowed back on those views.
When still a teenager in 1996, she praised the former war leader when speaking to a French news crew, saying: “Everything he did, he did for Italy — and there have been no politicians like him for 50 years."
The 45-year-old might have looked to distance herself from Mussolini more recently, but that has not stopped her from adopting a slogan from his totalitarian era.
She has been spotted holding up scarves and speaking behind banners emblazoned with the slogan “God, homeland, family”.
Ms Meloni’s party was forged from the legacy of a neo-fascist party formed shortly after WWII by supporters of Mussolini.
Giorgia Meloni’s views and policies
Some commentators have described Giorgia Meloni as being “anti-woke”.
Piers Morgan said Meloni had “positioned herself as the enemy of woke ideology” during her campaign speeches.
During her election rallies, the mother-of-one launched attacks on the flexible use of gender pronouns and strongly defended Italy’s national identity and Christian culture.
She is also staunchly anti-consumerist and has previously attacked abortion rights, immigration and the use of recreational drugs.
Using the hashtags “#Meloni” and “#Italy” on Twitter, Mr Morgan said: “The more insanely woke the left becomes, the more European voters are gravitating to right-wing parties.
“Until the left gets a grip of the lunatics steering its agenda into the PC [political correctness] abyss, this will keep happening.”
Meloni will now enter into talks with her potential coalition partners about their policy offering.
She has backed the supplying of Ukraine with arms to defend itself against Russia ’s invasion.
In contrast, right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini has voiced concern that Western sanctions could end up hurting Italy’s economic interests more than punishing Moscow.
Meloni is a Eurosceptic, but Berlusconi, who she previously worked for as a minister, has said that his inclusion in a centre-right bloc’s coalition would guarantee that Italy stays firmly anchored in the European Union.
With Italy’s households and businesses struggling with staggeringly high energy bills as winter approaches, Ms Meloni is not keen on Mr Salvini’s push to increase borrowing by tens of billions of euros to pay for energy relief when Italy is already laden with debt.
READ NEXT:
