Rome, Sept. 26 (BNA) It appears that Georgia Meloni is poised to become Italy’s first female prime minister to head the most right-wing government since World War II, after leading a conservative coalition to victory in Sunday’s election.
Interim results showed the right-wing bloc should have a solid majority in both houses of parliament, which could give Italy a rare chance for political stability after years of turmoil and fragile alliances, Reuters reported.
However, Meloni and her allies face a daunting list of challenges, including rising energy prices, the war in Ukraine, and a renewed slowdown in the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
“We must remember that we are not at the end point, we are at the starting point. From tomorrow we must prove our worth,” 45-year-old Meloni told supporters of her nationalist Brothers of Italy party early on. Monday morning.
Meloni downplays her party’s post-fascist roots as a mainstream group like Britain’s Conservative Party. She has pledged to support Western policy on Ukraine and not to risk Italy’s fragile finances.
European capitals and financial markets will carefully scrutinize its early moves, given its skeptical past in the European Union and the conflicting position of its allies on Russia.
In her victory speech, Meloni used a conciliatory tone.
“If we are called to rule this nation, we will do so for all Italians with the aim of uniting the people and focusing on what unites us, not what divides us,” she said. “This is the time to take responsibility.”
LEAGUE WOES
Projections based on more than half of the votes counted put the Brothers of Italy at roughly 26%, up from just 4% in the last national election in 2018, where voters picked a largely untried figure to solve the nation’s many problems.
By contrast, its chief ally suffered a disastrous night, with Matteo Salvini’s League receiving about 9% of the vote, down from more than 17% four years earlier, and overtaken by Meloni in all the traditional fiefs of the North.
The other main conservative party, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, scored about 8%, leaving the Brothers of Italy the dominant partner.
Although the Meloni Alliance is expected to maintain a comfortable majority in the House and Senate, its members have divergent positions on many issues that may be difficult to reconcile.
Salvini, for example, is skeptical of the West’s sanctions against Russia, and he and Berlusconi have often expressed admiration for its leader, Vladimir Putin.
They also have different views on how to deal with rising energy bills and have made a host of promises, including tax cuts and pension reform, that Italy will struggle to afford.
Sarah Carlson, senior vice president of credit rating agency Moody’s, said the next Italian government will have to manage the debt burden “which is vulnerable to negative growth, cost of financing and inflation developments.”
Meloni will succeed Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, who propelled Rome to the center of EU policymaking during his 18-month tenure in office, building close ties with Paris and Berlin.
By contrast, among the first leaders to congratulate Meloni was Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, whom Brussels has accused of violating the rule of law, but who is close to Meloni and Salvini.
Despite his apparent victory, the vote was not a strong endorsement of the conservative coalition. The turnout was just 64% versus 74% four years ago – a record low in a country that has historically had strong voter participation.
The right has taken full advantage of Italy’s electoral law, which benefits parties that formulate pre-polling agreements. Center-left and center-left parties failed to correlate, and although they won more votes than the Conservatives, they ended up with far fewer seats.
The center-left Democratic Party (PD) had about 19%, the left-leaning, unbiased 5-Star Movement scored about 16%, and the centrist “Work” group got just over 7%.
“This is a sad evening for the country,” said Deborah Seracciani, a senior lawmaker in the Democratic Party. “(The right) has a majority in parliament, but not in the country.”