Italy’s right-wing, it seems, already believes it has won the elections. Doped up by the polls, also strengthened by the usual chaos in the left camp. It’s that quick: It’s only been a few days since Mario Draghi’s fall, but Italy’s politics feels like light years have passed. The election campaign is already underway, and there isn’t much time left. On September 25, the Italians will elect a new parliament – half a year before the actual end of the legislative period. And if the world is looking at Rome with some concern, there are some good reasons.
If the pollsters’ forecast comes true, Italy will get a right-wing government majority that has not existed in Western Europe since the war: very, very right-wing, with a strong national-populist drive.
In Italy, the camp from the Fratelli d’Italia, Lega and Forza Italia is called “Centrodestra”: from “centre” and “right”, i.e. middle right. That may have been the case back then, when Silvio Berlusconi brought the Lega Nord and the fascists out of political isolation in 1994 in order to use their help to come to power. As long as Berlusconi was the head of the alliance, Padrone with twice or three times as many voters as the other parties, the term “Centrodestra” could be justified to some extent, even though the Cavaliere was not exactly a conventional conservative politician.
But now the pecking order has reversed. The “Centro” has shrunk considerably, the old boss is actually only a junior partner, while the tough “Destra” leads the alliance. Forza Italia is in the polls at 10 percent, Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populist Lega at 14 percent and Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia at 23 percent.
Berlusconi is only a junior partner – perhaps Manfred Weber should be told that
Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, never tires of invoking Berlusconi and his friend Antonio Tajani, the former President of the European Parliament and number two of Forza Italia, as guarantors of a moderate, liberal and pro-Europe government in Rome. But one may ask how this conviction is compatible with the new balance of power in the Italian right. Weber even thought Tajani was the EPP’s man for the Roman government leadership. As a third party?
In fact, the question of Italy’s next prime minister is a central one. Forza Italia and Lega apparently want to prevent Meloni from reaching for office: too inexperienced, too excited, too ideologically charged. What would happen abroad if a political heir to fascism were running Italy? Meloni claims that she is wrongly reduced to the history of fascism. But she’s never really wanted to distance herself.
Meloni does not want to be deprived of the fruits of her ascent. She is ready to govern, she now told the newspaper La Stampa. “Whoever wins the elections moves into the Palazzo Chigi.” This is the name of the seat of the Italian Prime Minister in Rome. But of course she knows about the view from the outside. And so Meloni took the opportunity to emphasize that Italy’s foreign policy line would not change with her in power, it would remain the same as under Draghi – in the transatlantic and European tradition also in relation to Ukraine, the arms deliveries to Kyiv, the sanctions against Russia’s powerful. Whether Lega and Forza Italia see it that way is not so sure.
moderate? Giorgia Meloni likes the company of Orbán and Vox best
In general, Meloni tries to be as moderate as possible since she rose so high in the polls – suitable for government, digestible. Some things seem forced. The European Union? She wants to change her from “inside out,” like Marine Le Pen, her counterpart in France – whatever that means. Their ideas about the family, immigration and Islam are firmly anchored in the right-wing identitarian, arch-Catholic world of thought. She feels particularly comfortable in the company of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and at events organized by Vox, Spain’s far-right party. She approaches the election campaign gently, with few promises, she can afford it.
Salvini, on the other hand, her internal rival, is already cranked up. During an appearance in Domodossola at the weekend, he outlined “the first hundred days of the right-wing government”: tax amnesty, flat taxes, zero migrants in the streets, security in the cities – these are the absolute urgencies. He was wearing shorts, sneakers, he shaved off his beard, a wager was redeemed. Apparently he wants to be Minister of the Interior again, at least. Because Salvini is actually convinced that in the end the Lega will be ahead of the Fratelli d’Italia. “Whoever wins one more vote provides the prime minister,” he said, and that would be the Lega.
Berlusconi is already on all channels again, he too is electrified. The minimum pensions? If he were to double that, he says: to a thousand euros, thirteen times a year. Berlusconi has always made unreasonable promises, many Italians believed him. He wants to go back to the Senate, where they threw him out a few years ago after his conviction for tax fraud – as revenge. La Republica claims Salvini promised him the presidency of the Senate if he helped overthrow Draghi. Then the phone was taken from Berlusconi so that nobody could reason with him. He is 85 years old. As a guarantor of moderation, he has never been a particularly successful cast. And nothing will change about that.