Elections in Italy: Mussolini’s nostalgics flee and alarms sound in Europe

These hours that are lived Italyin the midst of the European alarm, they begin to write the Great History of the new era that is beginning, already fraught with tragedies such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the confrontation with the West populated by atomic threats launched by Vladimir Putin himself and the economic consequences that the disasters are producing.

What happened on Wednesday evening in Rome fits into this sobering context disturbing elements lived in 20th century Europe and which led to the two world wars.

In a room of the Italian Parliament, Giorgia Meloni, accused of being a neo-fascist and head of a party (Fratelli d’Italia) partially populated by nostalgic for the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini triumphed over his comrades in the center-right coalition.

imposed on them under threat withdraw from the alliance, that the rule is immediately established who gets the most votes of the trio of executives that includes Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia) and Matteo Salvini (La Liga), automatically be the candidate for head of government Italians after the early elections of 25 September.

Berlusconi, four times prime minister, multimillionaire and liberal conservative, placed in the centrism that represents the European People’s Party at the European level, it is in the twilight and their guests have been reduced to 8-9% according to polls.

Berlusconi, who wants to be the protagonist, be the axis and be elected president of the Senate, tried to stop the Meloni attack. “Giorgia you can scare many people,” she told her.

Berlusconi was counting on Matteo Salvini, the populist leader of La Liga, but reiterated his position that “Whoever gets one more vote is the leader”. Many believe that this line hides a maneuver, but the two hit it head on the petite blonde of 45 years who knows how to use an iron fist.

In 2019 Salvini experienced his golden age. He was the leader of the European right-wing sovereigns and his popularity reached 34.5%. Since made many mistakes and today’s poll response nails it below 15%. According to polls, 24% of the Brothers in Italy beats the numbers that bring together Berlusconi and Salvini.

They both had to relax and this Thursday Meloni woke upis more preferred than ever win the general elections in late September. Sure, there are practically two months to go, but at the beginning has already taken the lead.

Also, Melon got another win impose it on him they touch 98 of the 221 benches that a convoluted electoral system forces to elect “ad personam” and not by the proportional system that governs in most cases.

It is assumed that this variant may confer rights a devastating victory for up to 60% of parliamentary seats, which were reduced by a constitutional law by a third. There are now 400 deputies to be elected and 200 senators.

A shot to the left center

These numbers do not bore anyone because they foreshadow a historic beating to the entire center-left and to the centrist allies, who are leaving in a sea of ​​difficulties.

The center-right could accumulate up to 47% of the votes and the future opposition, led by the Democratic Party, could get bogged down at 36-37%. Rights would have done it in this framework an absolute majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

The resigning premier Mario Draghi, whose fall triggered the current seismic shifts, remains unperturbed at the helm of the government with reduced powers due to the drop in the economist’s confidence vote just a week ago.

Draghi, considered in the cataract of praise that is written in Europe to commemorate his enterprise having saved the European currencythe euro, when between 2011 and 2019 was president of the European Central Bank, warned on Wednesday that “we will have a complicated winter”.

General curiosity continues to bet: where will the prestigious figure of the Italian statesman go now? Will he be director of the International Monetary Fund, or secretary general of NATO, the Western military alliance? No, a good source claims that in early 2024 will replace the President of the European Council, Belgian Charles Michel.

The European Council is made up of the heads of government of the 27 European countries and only a former head of that level can hold the office for which the heads of Europe vote. Draghi aspires to that succession and would already have the approval of European leaders who know they will need it to deal with it stormy times that are drawn like rays on the horizon.

The President of the European Council is the highest diplomatic authority of the European Union and her role is intertwined with two other main figures: the president of the European Commission, the government structure of the Union, the German Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Parliament, the Maltese Roberta Metsola.

A nightmare for Europe

It is a great nightmare the materialization of the threat that deeply concerned European leaders, following the probable victory in Italy of one of the main defenders of sovereign nationalism in the European context of 27 countries on a territory of 4 million square kilometers and 450 million inhabitants who produce 18 billion of wealth per year.

This is the other perspective, international, closely linked to the national sphere, of which a precise idea is given the magnitude of the challenge that Meloni has launched.

The main pro-sovereign group, that of Visegrad, made up of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, is not lacking in the stories that are written in Europe, which has clashed hard with the leaders and most of the European countries.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine dispersed the group, with the exception of its alma mater, Hungarian President Viktor Orbán.

Friend of Putin, Orbán continues to give constant headaches. The answer was cut EU funds to Hungary, accused of a flood of domestic anti-democratic measures.

Orban, Fraternal friend of Meloni and Matteo Salvini, remains on the front pages of the European press after declaring the incompatibility of migration with the “European race” that really doesn’t exist.

“We don’t want to be mestizos”, he said, attacking the Union’s immigration policies. Today, one of her main collaborators, Zsusza Hegedus, sent him an open letter in which she announced that she no longer wanted to work with him. “I don’t know if you realize that yours is a pure Nazi-style speech, a Joseph Goebbels-style tirade,” Hitler’s propaganda minister told him.

The Hungarian president has put together this great new ruckus, speaking in front of a community of Hungarians living in Romania. He said that the peoples of Europe should be free to mix with each otherbut not with strangers, not to create “a mixed race world”.

Orbán added that this would be a central goal of “the internationalist left”.

The Hungarian president, leader of the European sovereignists, also begins the Italian electoral campaign, because his friendship and his ideological neighborhood with Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini promise new scandals and controversies.

Rome, correspondent

ap