With a message that mixes Christianity, motherhood and patriotism, Giorgia Meloni rides a wave of popularity that next month could make her the first woman who will lead the Italian government, bringing the far right back to the pinnacle of power since World War II.

Although his Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, Meloni has tried to dispel concerns about his legacy, saying voters have grown weary of such discussions. Anyway, there are signs that the inheritance cannot be undone so easily: Their party symbol includes the image of a tricolor flame, taken from a neo-fascist grouping formed shortly after the end of the war.

If Fratelli d’Italia prevails at the polls on 25 September and Meloni, 45, becomes prime minister, it will come almost 100 years later of the month in which Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy, came to power in October 1922.

For most Italian voters, questions about anti-fascism and neo-fascism are not “a key factor in deciding who to vote for,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, director of the polling firm YouTrend.

the controversy

“They don’t see it as part of the present. They see it as part of the past ”. However, Meloni is sensitive to international scrutiny over his potential prime ministerial post and prefers the far-right conservative term to describe his party.

He recently made videos in English, French and Spanish who affirmed that the Italian right “has consigned fascism to history for decades, unequivocally condemning the suppression of democracy and the shameful anti-Jewish laws”.

It was a reference to the laws of 1938 that prohibited the small Italian Jewish community from participating in business, education and other aspects of daily life. The laws paved the way for the deportation of many Italian Jews to Nazi extermination camps during the German occupation of Rome.

However, by keeping the tricolor flame in their party logo, “He is symbolically playing with that legacy”said David Art, a political science professor at Tufts University who studies the European far right.

Only five years ago, Brothers of Italy – their name is inspired by the first words of the national anthem – it was seen as a marginal force, with 4.4% of the vote. Now, polls indicate it could take the top spot in September and win up to 24% of the vote, just ahead of the center-left Democratic Party.

Meloni has allied herself with the far right Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, who, like her, is in favor of the repression of illegal immigration. Her other electoral ally is the center-right Forza Italia party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Last year, his party was the only important one he refused to join the coalition of national unity against the Italian pandemic led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank.

Speech

Draghi’s government collapsed last month, abruptly abandoned by Salvini, Berlusconi and 5-star leader Giuseppe Conte, all worried about the decline in the fortunes of their parties at the polls.

Meloni apologized for the “tone”, but not for the content, from a fiery speech he gave in June in Spain to garner support for the far-right Vox party. “They will say that we are dangerous, extremists, racists, fascists, deniers and homophobes,” thundered Meloni, in an apparent reference to Holocaust deniers.

It ended with a crescendo of slogans shouted: “Yes to natural families! No to LGBT lobbies! Yes to sexual identity! No to gender ideology! “

Abortion has not emerged as an electoral issue in Italy, where it is legal. But Melons criticized the decline in births from Italy, which would be even lower if immigrant women had no children.

According to her 2021 memoir “I am Giorgia”, much of her identity was forged growing up in the working-class neighborhood of Garbatella in Rome. At the age of 15 she joined a youth branch of the Italian Social Movement, the neo-fascist party with the symbol of the flame.

When I was 31, Berlusconi has appointed her Minister of Youth. But he soon opened the way for himself, co-founding Brothers of Italy in 2012. Both Salvini and Meloni say they are safeguarding what they call the Christian identity of Europe.

If Meloni comes to power, there are concerns about Italy’s support for right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland “because of their deeply conservative agendas”. Meloni says he “will fiercely oppose any undemocratic drift”.

AP Agency

PB