Giorgia Meloni faces the crisis and strengthens in Italy after two months in government

In two months, the government of Giorgia Meloni and the centre-right coalition that supports it have strengthened, while the centre-left opposition in Italy has sunk.

In just two months since he took office, the government of Giorgia Meloni, 45, and the centre-right coalition that supports her they consolidated their power as the centre-left former main opposition party continues to sink.

According to the latest SWG Institute polls, Meloni has risen to 30.6% of the popular consensus, while the Democratic Party, historic representative of centre-leftdropped below 15% consensus, with an anemic 14.7%.

The fall of the force that united the Christian Democrat groups with the remaining forces of the PCI fifteen years ago, which after the war was “the most numerous in the West”, made it lose its role as the main opposition force.

He has been overtaken by the populists of the 5 Star Movement with 17.4% and in steady growth, who are successfully trying to relegate him to third place.

The crisis seems terminal in the Democratic Party. In mid-January there will be a congress convened by the leader Enrico Letta, of Christian Democrat origins, who has definitively resigned. Members have dropped from 320,000 to 50,000 and confusion reigns above all among the four candidates to succeed Letta in an organization dominated by factions and internal leaders.

The crisis congress is likely to end not only with new authorities but with a re-foundation under a new name.

The PD no longer represents, as was the priority tradition in the Italian left, the sectors of work and social causes. Its members are mostly middle-class and affluent, inspired by a moderate progressive culture. But now the road is uphill and it is not known when the culmination of the end of the crisis will be reached.

The big change

This scenario allows the head of the government Giorgia Meloni to repeat from time to time that her government “will last five years”, which is the period of the Legislature that has just begun.

Everything seems to indicate that it will be able to do the most important institutional change of the republican period, born after the Second World War: pass with the popular support of the parliamentary regime to a semi-presidential one inspired by the French model, with a President of the Republic who lasts five years in power.

Although the economic situation is difficult and the scenario posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s confrontation with the United States and its European allies is very risky, the little blonde Gloria, mother of a young daughter and companion of a journalist television, overcame the worst problems and asserted itself in power with a bunch of clear ideas transformed into a governing style.

First fully joined the Western alliance in this war not declared with Russia and is sympathetic to US President Joe Biden, despite being the leader of the Democratic Party and Meloni proclaims herself an enthusiastic conservative of the Republicans.

He also attended the last congress of the force led by former President Donald Trump, who is running for re-election in 2024.

On that little rope Meloni dances with talent and Biden said he likes it.

With her strategic back covered, Giorgia has used these two months since she became government to gain a foothold two fundamental issues. It’s worth teasing that so far he’s getting it.

What has caused more unknowns is: how it demonstrates consubstantiation with a liberal democratic regime by producing concrete facts, despite coming from the area of ​​three political forces increasingly distant heirs of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.

sympathies for fascism

Giorgia said and says that she has never had anything to do with fascism, which is not true. She entered the Italian Social Movement at a very young age, which in December 1946 trained the last high officials of fascism in the northern Republic of Saló, which in 1944 was the last government experiment of the twenty-year fascist regime, which succumbed in April 1945 with the rebellion of Milan , the advance of the allies, the capture and execution of Mussolini.

Giorgio Almirante, official of the Republic of Saló, was the head and soul of the Italian Social Movement. Upon his death, already in the 80s of the last century, another party was founded, which Giorgia Meloni also joined, who continued to praise Mussolini in some statements found on the networks, even in some French videos.

Giorgia did not claim the times of fascism, but ideas of Italian nationalist affirmation, even if much of Mussolini’s nostalgia has taken refuge up to now in her party. He continued like this, until he founded his current party, Brothers of Italy, with which he won the elections of last September 25th.

Just this Monday, the Undersecretary of Defense, Senator Isabella Rauti, wrote in a tweet a reminder of the birth of the MSI. 76 years have passed since it was founded by Giorgio Almirante and his father, Pino Rauti, a famous neo-fascist leader.

Isabella wrote in her memoir that “deep roots do not freeze” and many anti-fascists raised a cry to heaven, asking Meloni for clarification.

The incident will remain in that, because Meloni is constantly moving to show himself a ruler imbued with liberal democratic ideals in political coexistence.

The Italians believe him and polls reveal that he registers a majority personal consensus.

Economic crisis

The second key issue that the prime minister has the most difficulty dealing with is a difficult economic environment. The energy crisis is the main source of concern for Italian families. Rising costs and final prices also increase the so-called “energy poverty”, which increases the already alarming level of relative and absolute poverty.

A few months ago Italy discovered a reality that was in sight: in the last thirty years in Europe wages have grown by 30% in Germany and France, while Italians are last with -0.3%. An historic failure.

The Covid pandemic has set off all the alarms since February 2020, when it began, claiming more than 184,000 deaths to date.

With the red lights on, a national unity government chaired by the economist Mario Draghi was convened, which managed to lead the crisis and obtain good results from 2021.

Although Draghi was sent home, Gloria Meloni found that the result for 2022 was better than expected: it reaches 3.9% annual growth, with better levels than Germany and France. The year ahead would see the rate fall to 0.4%, a trifle when many expected an inevitable full-blown recession.

Although inflation bites with prospects of 10% per annum, Domestic demand is expected to be sustained and the government praises the results of the increases in gas, electricity and fuel, which are below the very high levels of three months ago.

The government expects Parliament to approve the budget law by the end of the year, with a maneuver of 35 billion euros intended to help households and businesses to alleviate energy increases.

The bleak panorama of a spread of “energy poverty” which is added to the increase that has brought the relative and absolute poor emergencies to figures of over 6 or 7 million people, with the verification that the critical siege also reaches part of the middle class, it is the most serious challenge social for the Italian government.

Rome, correspondent

B. C