Italy election 2022: Giorgia Meloni appears set to become Italy’s most far-right
Addressing the media and supporters in the early hours of Monday morning, Meloni said it was “a night of pride for many and a night of redemption.”
“It’s a victory I want to dedicate to everyone who is no longer with us and wanted this night,” she said. “Starting tomorrow we have to show our value … Italians chose us, and we will not betray it, as we never have,” she said.
With 63% of votes counted, the ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy party had won at least 26%, with coalition partners the League, led by Matteo Salvini, taking around 9% and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia scoring over 8%. Final results are expected later Monday, but it’s expected to take weeks for a new government to be formed.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party — whose origins lie in post-war fascism — has seen an astronomical rise in popularity in recent years, having won just 4.5% of the vote in the last elections, in 2018.
The party’s popularity underscores Italy’s longstanding rejection of mainstream politics, seen most recently with the country’s support of anti-establishment parties such as the Five Star Movement and Salvini’s League.
Celebrating the early results on Sunday evening, Salvini said on Twitter, “Center-right in clear advantage both in the House and in the Senate! It will be a long night, but already now I want to say THANK YOU.”
Meloni, a 45-year-old mother from Rome who has campaigned under the slogan “God, country and family,” leads a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism, anti-immigration policies, and one that has also proposed curtailing LGBTQ and abortion rights.
The preliminary results showed the center-left coalition, led by the left-wing Democratic Party and centrist party +Europe had won at least 26% of the vote, while former prime minister Giuseppe Conte’s bid to revive the Five Star Movement appeared to have been unsuccessful, with around 15%.
The Democratic Party conceded defeat early Monday morning, calling the results a “sad evening for the country.”
“Undoubtedly we cannot, in light of the data seen so far, not attribute the victory to the right dragged by Giorgia Meloni. It is a sad evening for the country,” Debora Serracchiani of the Democratic Party told reporters.
Sunday’s snap national election was triggered by party infighting that saw the collapse of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government in July.
Voters headed to the polls amid a number of new regulations, with voting hours also contained to one day rather than two.
Other changes included a younger voting age for the Senate and a reduction in the number of seats to elect — down from 685 seats to 400 in the Senate and from 315 to 200 in the lower House of Parliament. That parliament is scheduled to meet on October 13, at which point the head of state will call on party leaders to decide on the shape of the new government.
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