Georgia on my mind

Giorgia Meloni is the political revelation of 2019 and we're sure to hear a lot more from her, wrote This is Italy 3 years ago. That prophecy has come true, and how! The frontwoman of Fratelli d'Italia is the big winner of the parliamentary elections on September 25, 2022 and is preparing to rule Italy.

On October 20, President Mattarella will start a consultation round with the new group leaders and it must already be very strange if no formation assignment for Meloni rolls out there.

Finally, the right-wing coalition she led holds more than half of the seats in both Camera dei Deputati and Senate. This raises the question of what can be expected from a cabinet of extreme right-wing signature led by her. The international press is following her with suspicion and they are also not completely reassured in Brussels.

Political feat

Everyone agrees that Meloni has performed a political feat. The paltry 4,3% of the March 4, 2018 election has grown to more than a quarter (26,3%) of voters, making Meloni undisputedly the central figure in Italian politics.

That is largely due to herself. Meloni, 45, who is 29^e Already became a Member of Parliament and 2 years later Minister of Youth Affairs in the then government Berlusconi, is a skilled debater with an undeniable charisma.

She also has a broad knowledge of files and languages, which came in handy in the recent campaign, when she was able to speak directly to critical foreign media in English, French and Spanish.

Her PR machine also works excellently. Meloni is always good for a powerful Facebook post and her public appearances are never short of FdI flags and banners.

ready

The election posters with her face bore a single-word slogan: ready, or we are ready (to rule). And she summarizes her political credo in the succinct slogan Dio, patria, family (God, fatherland, family), which according to political opponents is borrowed from fascism, but which Giorgia Meloni herself (and not only she) attributes to Joseph Mazzini, the patriarch of the unitary Italian state.

Meloni's success is also partly due to the political decline of her coalition partner Matteo Salvini. The leader of the League, who achieved 2019% in the European elections of 34, has basically done everything wrong since then. During the corona crisis, he swam back and forth between proponents and opponents of vaccination. He opposed the Draghi government, which included his own Lega. And only last week he distanced himself from his political friend Vladimir Putin.

Meloni was more consistent. She endorsed the vaccination policy and (arms) support for Ukraine and her party was virtually the only one to remain outside Draghi's cabinet. Untainted by government power, FdI became an attractive alternative to disappointed legal history and other disaffected citizens, so that Salvini's party fell to a measly 9%.

Program

It is not yet clear what a future Meloni government will bring. The right-wing coalition's program speaks of defending national borders and production, but within the European and Atlantic alliances. (The only Italian party still advocating an exit from the EU and abolishing the euro, Italexit, failed to pass the 3% electoral threshold.)

Also on the agenda are a revision of the post-covid recovery plan already agreed with Brussels, a bridge over the Strait of Messina, tax cuts and flat taxes, higher pensions, promotion of population growth through support for families, a presidential republic (after the French example) , combating illegal immigration and so on.

It doesn't say how all that should be paid for, and the program wisely makes no mention of fighting tax evasion and fraud. On the contrary, the intention is not to lower the maximum cash payment allowed, but to increase it: a clear nod to evaders and dodgers who form a significant electoral pressure group in Italy.

No preferential treatments

Minorities, immigrants, the poor and homosexuals should not count on preferential treatment. (Meloni has promised that she does not want to change the cohabitation contract and the abortion legislation).

Within Europe, ties are undoubtedly being strengthened with far-right kindred spirits. The FdI and Lega groups provided a foretaste last week in the European Parliament when they voted against a motion to condemn Hungarian leader Orban.

The fear of a new fascism is unfounded, but nice things for leftists can forget the Italians for the time being.