Giorgia Meloni is set to be sworn in as Italy’s prime minister. Some fear the hard-right turn she’s promised to take

Roman
CNN
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Giorgia Melonihardline leader about to be sworn in as Italy’s first female prime minister, won the election about a campaign built around the promise of stopping migrant ships and advocating traditional “family values” and anti-LGBTQ themes.

She heads a coalition of far-right and centre-right parties, leading her own Brotherhood party in Italy among them, and is set to form the most right-wing government Italy has seen in decades. .

Meloni’s victory in last month’s parliamentary elections shows that the appeal of nationalism has not yet been constrained in Italy – but her vow to take the country to the far right still dismayed many. sure what will happen next.

The new government is made up of a coalition with two other right-wing leaders. One is Matteo Salvini, a former interior minister who became a darling of the far right in 2018 when he transformed his party, the League, once a northern separatist party, into a nationalist force. tenet.

The other is Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s centre-right former prime minister widely remembered for his “bunga bunga” sex scandals with young women. Both have previously publicly expressed admiration for Russian President Putin, which has raised questions about the alliance’s approach to Russia.

And just this week – a few days before the start of consultations on forming a government – Secretly recorded audio has been circulated in which Berlusconi appeared to blame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Kyiv’s doorstep, and boasted of having re-established ties with the Russian leader.

“I reconnected a little bit with President Putin, in the sense that on my birthday he gave me 20 bottles of Vodka and a very sweet letter, and I reciprocated by giving him a gift. Lambrusco bottles,” Berlusconi says in the clip. , reported on Tuesday by the Italian news agency LaPresse. The 86-year-old billionaire and media mogul was talking to Forza Italia party members at the time.

A party spokesman denied Berlusconi had any connection to Putin, saying he had told MPs “an old story that referred to an episode many years ago.” Berlusconi defended his comments in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Thursday, saying they were taken out of context.

Amid backlash over the comments, Meloni, who has consistently supported Ukraine as it resisted Moscow’s invasion, sought to clarify where she and the coalition stood when in power.

“I have been and will always be clear, I intend to lead a government with a clear and unequivocal foreign policy. Italy is fully part of Europe and the Atlantic Union. Anyone who disagrees with this platform will not be able to become part of the government, at the cost of not being a government.. With our management, Italy will never be the weak link of the West,” she said.

However, liberals in Italy and the European Union are fearful of what the promised right turn could mean for the country and its future – while conservative elements Conservatives feel that only a strong politician, like Meloni, can lead the country out of crisis amid soaring energy. costs and high youth unemployment.

“Meloni doesn’t express the vote choice of far-right voters, because we have data that shows she’s been given a majority vote,” said Lorenzo De Sio, professor of political science at Luiss University Guido Carli. big is the center right to vote for.

“I would say that Meloni’s motto is to be a new conservatist – that is, conservatism for the 21st century. She may have some distant connection to her post-modern legacy. fascist, but that’s clearly not the core of her political platform now.”

Meloni grew up in the Roman working-class neighborhood of Garbatella, a historic left-wing area of ​​southern Rome that was built under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. She became politically active in the Youth Front Movement, a political organization with fascist roots.

She went on to found her own political party, the Brothers of Italy, which in just four years went from winning 4% of the vote to winning 26% in last month’s election. While that doesn’t represent a majority of Italians, thanks to her partnerships with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Salvini’s League, the coalition has enough seats in parliament to run the country.

Back in the Garbatella neighborhood, amid the fruit and vegetable stalls that Meloni would go with her mother, some locals remember her as a child, long before she entered politics. Opinions about what she should be like as a leader vary widely.

“I know her very well. I’ve known her since she was little,” said Aldo, a fruit and vegetable supplier in Garbatella who has been running his market stall for decades. “Her mother will come to shop here. She always has a book in hand to study. If she moves forward like when she was little, she will be strong.”

He added: “You have to have a strong fist. Stage = Stage. You understand? That’s how you move forward. Otherwise Italy, kapoof, it’s gone! ”

Just across the market, Gloria, who was born and raised in Garbatella and is helping her son at his Roman deli, has a very different perspective.

“What she has said up until now horrifies me,” she told CNN.

“There are many people who connect with conservative ideals because they are racist, because they are not progressive. I have three children and I wonder, is my daughter free to have an abortion if she wants to be a lesbian? ”

In more recent times, Meloni has sought to separate her party from its neo-fascist roots. Her policy proposals have also evolved over time, including withdrawing some of her anti-EU ideas.

Back in 2014, she said, “Italy must leave the euro!” and called on Congress to revoke sanctions on Russia. Now, according to her proposed plan to the government and the latest comments, she wants Italy to become a “main player in Europe.”

Emiliano, a local who was shopping at Garbatella market, said he did not mind voting in the most recent election. “Neither the left nor the right deserve to vote. Before, politicians ate but we also ate. Now only they eat,” he said.

With energy costs skyrocketing, the risks for businesses and households in Italy are high. According to Coldiretti, the largest association for agricultural support in Italy.

According to a recent report by Coldiretti, rising production costs have forced many small agribusinesses to close during the growing season because they cannot cope.

Sabina Petrucci manages her family’s olive oil company, Olio Petrucci, and is also a member of Coldiretti’s European council for young agricultural workers. She feels hopeful and believes that the only way to solve current problems is through strong political leadership.

“We need a specific government, to help us with energy costs and also to get the financial support and financial help we may need in the future,” said Petrucci. “Many manufacturers in the region are shutting down production, they’re really scared about the rising costs.”

She described rising energy costs as a “big threat to us”, adding: “We’ve opened our factory, but production costs have gone up over the summer.”

Italy has the third oldest population in the world, but Meloni and her party have worked to connect with young Italians, the next generation of voters. She herself entered politics at the age of 15, after registering with the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded by Giorgio Almirante, who was a minister in the Italian Social Movement (MSI). government of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Francesco Todde is a leader of the National Youth movement, a political movement launched in 2014 by the Brotherhood of Italy party to connect with a young generation of politically interested Italians who have been frustrated with the political status quo.

“Giorgia Meloni comes from the political path of young people, so she always pays a lot of attention to young people and has reforms towards young people. At the beginning of her political career, she was the youth minister,” he told CNN.

Elisa Segnini Bocchia, another committed member of the National Youth movement, responds to why some are quick to associate the movement with fascism, saying: “Our past is not is our future. So we are not looking at the past. We look for a new future”.