Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Fratelli d'Italia party, and now Italy’s first female prime minister, had presented herself as Christian, modern and harmless prior to Italy’s last general elections. At the same time, she had pledged to transform Italy into an authoritarian state if she wins the elections. During the election campaign, she was responsible for several tirades against the "LGBT lobby" and ardently showed her support for Hungary's far-right prime minister Victor Orbán. In 2020 she spread fake news about the coronavirus and tweeted that the EU would benefit from the pandemic, without explaining exactly how.
On more than one occasion she had insisted that she will not be a danger to democracy if she becomes premier, contending that her party has "consigned fascism to history". Meloni says she is a Christian, but that does not necessarily mean she likes going to church. She supports ultra-conservative groups which, in the name of God, are mobilising against the right to abortion and “unnatural” families. One cannot fail to underline the Russian connections of Meloni's allies in the rightist bloc her party dominates. Lega leader Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi both maintain links with the Kremlin. Through them, Putin would for the first time have allies in the government of a Western European country and with their help he could destabilise the Union. At the same time, in terms of foreign policy, Meloni will have a pragmatic approach at a European level, to ensure that Brussels continues to send money to Rome.
When this Italian star of the Italian radical right published her autobiography in the spring of 2021, she naturally titled it Io sono Giorgia (Rizzoli, 2021). The book, which was met with unexpected success (more than 150,000 copies sold, a feat for a political book in Italy), is a strange document confession alternating between her political and personal life. From her childhood wounds to her long career, the post-fascist leader seemed to conceal nothing, laying bare her most secret thoughts and feelings. Yet, upon closing the book, the reader is left with the impression of not having learned much more about her.
Meloni has been most successful with her populist radical right party, which combines nativism, authoritarianism and populism. Nativism is a xenophobic form of nationalism, which wants Italy to be inhabited exclusively by “natives” and considers “non-natives” or “aliens” as a threat to the nation-state. It is best captured in the slogan that became infamous during violent protests in the streets of East German cities in the early 1990s: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out!” Authoritarianism is the idea that only a strong state can and should prevent chaos, using a variety of measures, including large police forces, tough penalties and the prioritisation of discipline in education and upbringing. Populism, finally, is a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”.
Every time she addressed a mass meeting she almost always dressed in white and her podium was always visibly covered with a tricolour flag. At first, smiling and joking with the crowd, Meloni used to begin her speech by attacking the left and Five Stars before warming to her theme of identity. Gradually, her speech used to speed up until it reached the machine-gun rhythm characteristic of a typical Roman way of speaking, which is one of her trademarks.
The visual propaganda of Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia party in the run-up to the elections followed the tradition of far-right iconography. Her cleverly constructed image helped make her radical ideas more digestible. The symbols and images in her propaganda as leader of Fratelli d’Italia, the party that is heir to neo-fascism and that convincingly triumphed in the 25 September elections, deserve to be deciphered. The photos the party published were dominated by Meloni, whose very presence at the head of the party had come as a surprise since women have played a very marginal role in the Italian far right in the past. The turning point came in 1992, when Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Il Duce and cover girl who had posed for Playboy, was triumphantly elected to Parliament on the lists of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI). It proved that, if they were young and pretty, female politicians were appreciated by the right-wing electorate and that paved the way for other candidates.
There is a real danger that she will be tempted to flirt with Italy's fascist history. Meloni has not clearly distanced herself from fascism. She has already expressed her intention to renegotiate EU treaties and to outlaw abortions and same-sex marriage. In terms of economic and foreign policy, she is relatively but perilously inexperienced.
Today, the new face of Europe’s radical right is on display in Italy. Yet one is to legitimately ask how is it that the European Parliament (EP), the only directly elected institution of the European Union (EU), was instrumental in empowering right-wing populist politicians, first in the UK, then France, and now, Italy, and helped challenge the right-wing populist governments of Hungary and Poland? Part of the response lies in the institutional rules shaping the EP’s elections and its authority. The paradoxical impact of the EP on European right-wing populism leads to another question. Should the EP privilege the rights of right-wing populist and anti-system actors or, to the contrary, should it protect democracy against democracy? In the last decade, the EP majority has taken diverse measures to limit right-wing populists’ influence both within the chamber and across the EU but do not appear to make headway.
Undoubtedly, the Italian electorate has democratically and lawfully opted for Meloni to run the country for the next five years. Yet the stakes, among which the continuity of Italy as an EU member state and the progression of civil rights and liberties, remain high. Malta’s direct and indirect interest in Italy’s affairs, especially the hot issue of illegal immigrants, also risks getting jeopardised.
Dr Mark Said is an advocate