Giorgia Meloni: the far-right firebrand poised to be Italy’s next premier

Three years ago, Italian firebrand Giorgia Meloni was in Rome’s largest piazza, promising tens of thousands of supporters that she would defend “God, the fatherland and the family” from the threat of illegal immigrants, Islamisation and leftist politicians “bent on their knees, licking the feet of the French and Germans.”

Today, Meloni, president of the Brothers of Italy party, stands on the cusp of history, tipped to become Italy’s first ever female prime minister — and its first leader with far right roots since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She plunged into Italy’s neo-fascist movement as an introverted and volatile teenager who had been raised by a single mother; now, as the country’s likely new premier, she will inherit an unenviable set of new challenges.

Italy’s economic outlook has darkened considerably since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and concerns are mounting about the sustainability of its massive public debt. The EU also faces an existential test as it tries to rally a united response to Russia’s aggression.

Meloni has long been a charismatic anti-globalisation rabble-rouser, lashing out at the international financial markets, the EU’s “anti-democratic drift”, the “LGBT lobby”, and others she accuses of trying to “destroy our identity and our civilisation to turn us into undefined citizens of the world.”

More recently, Meloni has sought to tone down her rhetoric and present herself as a pragmatic, mainstream conservative who will continue incumbent prime minister Mario Draghi’s policies, including the supply of weapons to Ukraine and effective implementation of a €200bn, EU-funded economic reform programme.

For many Italians going to vote on Sunday, Meloni, a high school graduate who lives with her partner and young daughter, is just the latest novelty in a crowded political market that has delivered nothing but years of political instability, economic stagnation and declining living standards. “The wind is blowing in favour of this young woman, who is seen as different,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at Rome’s LUISS University. “The sentiment is, they’ve tried everybody except Meloni so let’s try her as a last resort. But it’s without much enthusiasm.”

Born in Rome, Meloni spent her first years in a well-heeled neighbourhood, but moved to the blue-collar Garbatella district near her maternal grandparents after her father abandoned the family. While Garbatella had a strong leftist tradition, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement — founded by Mussolini loyalists just after second world war — also had a branch office near her family’s flat.

In 1992, as Italy’s political establishment was rocked by a massive corruption scandal and mafia violence, Meloni, then 15, joined up with the neo-fascist youth militants — many of them also social misfits from troubled homes — who considered themselves warriors against a rotten society.

In her autobiography I am Giorgia, Meloni, an avid childhood reader of fantasy fiction, recalls finding a “second family” and sense of belonging among the young activists. They revered Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings — with its heroic hobbits battling malevolent forces who threatened their pastoral idyll — as a sacred text and even dressed up as its characters during community outreach efforts.

In this crowd, Meloni stood out for fiery speeches that belied her diminutive stature. She was, according to her friend and longtime political ally Marco Marsilio, “a very serious person, very committed and above all very loyal . . . She kept her word, you could always count on her being there.”

While Meloni was rising rapidly through the far right youth movement, her mother party was rebranded and welcomed into the mainstream by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. She was elected to parliament in 2006, aged 29, and two years later, Berlusconi tapped her to become Italy’s youngest ever minister, awarding her the youth portfolio.

Meloni’s riskiest gambit came six years later, when she and a few others broke from Berlusconi’s sleaze-tainted mainstream conservative movement — which was supporting the government’s austerity measures — to launch Brothers of Italy, which was closer to her ideological roots. Through her sheer charisma, networking ability and tireless work ethic, Meloni turned the tiny political start-up (which won just 4 per cent of the vote in the 2018 general election) into Italy’s most formidable political force. She shrewdly stayed in the opposition party during the tenure of Draghi, an uber-technocrat.

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The world is now waiting to see which Meloni will emerge as premier: the pragmatist or the far-right ideologue who has made a virtue of refusing to compromise on her values. “Giorgia Meloni always had these two faces — she has always been very able to mix an institutional façade with strong far right values,” said Valerio Alfonso Bruno, a fellow at the UK-based Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right. “She is transgressive in a way that is similar to Donald Trump — this strongman personality. She has been able to normalise these conspiracy theories that were not seen in Italian politics.”

But Meloni will find herself walking a difficult tightrope if she does come to power. “It’s easy not to make compromises when you are in the opposition,” Bruno warned. “But when you are in the executive, it’s more complicated.”

Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi

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