Right-wing parties won the election in Italy on Sunday.
Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the largest right-wing party, Brothers of Italy, would become the country’s first woman prime minister.
She would lead the first right-wing government since Silvio Berlusconi stepped down in 2011, and the most right-wing government since the end of World War II.
The elections were called when Prime Minister Mario Draghi lost the confidence of parliament in July. He did not run for reelection.
All 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 200 elected seats in the Senate were contested.
Turnout, at 64 percent, was the lowest since Benito Mussolini rigged the election of 1924. (more…)
Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, February 26, 2022 (Vox España)
Italy’s next coalition government will likely consist of three right-wing parties: the Brothers of Italy, League and Forza Italia (Forward Italy) are polling at close to 50 percent support, which should be enough to give them control of both chambers of parliament.
For the first time, the Brothers of Italy, who split from Forza in 2012, would place first and provide the prime minister: Giorgia Meloni.
The (formerly Northern) League, led by Matteo Salvini, won the election in 2018, but conservatives were disappointed when it formed a government with the left-populist Five Star Movement, and even more disappointed when Salvini left the government in a failed bid to force snap elections.
Forza has been in third place since their leader, Silvio Berlusconi, lost reelection in 2013.
The parties have released a joint manifesto for the election in September that is light on detail but nevertheless provides the best clues about what a right-wing government might do. Here are the main points. (more…)
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi attends a conference of European conservative party leaders in Malta, March 30 (EPP)
Italy’s two largest right-wing parties have agreed that whichever one of them receives the most votes in the upcoming election will provide the prime minister in a future coalition government.
The separatist Northern League is currently outpolling former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s once-dominant Forza Italia. Together with the national-conservative Brothers of Italy, they would win around a third of the seats in parliament.
The ruling center-left and the populist Five Star Movement would each win another third. (more…)
Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Italian parliament, in Rome (Shutterstock)
Voting reforms enacted by the Italian parliament this week could do little to make the country more governable, an analysis of Ipsos polling data by Corriere della Sera reveals. The three main political blocs would remain roughly equal in size.
The new law allocates a third of the seats in the lower chamber on a first-past-the-post basis and removes the premium for the largest party.
The expectation was that these changes would hurt the populist Five Star Movement and help the mainstream left and right.
But it turns out the effect could be negligible. (more…)
Disagreement within former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party looks certain to divide the Italian right into a new conservative party and a more liberal group, both derived from the media tycoon’s Il Popolo della Libertà.
Berlusconi long maintained a solid grip over his party but faced overt opposition when he proposed to quit the government of Enrico Letta last month. Many conservatives were unwilling to link his judicial struggles — Berlusconi was convicted for tax fraud in his media empire — with the stability of the ruling coalition. His deputy, Angelino Alfano, and four other conservative ministers initially resigned from Letta’s cabinet but later turned against their leader with the support of more than twenty senators, forcing Berlusconi into a humiliating retreat.
The episode was the first interruption in Berlusconi’s twenty year-long domination of Italy’s right-wing politics and paved the way for a definitive split between the “government doves” and “loyalist hawks.” (more…)
In a dense night for Italian politics, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi used a video address Wednesday night to announce the revival of his twenty year-old party Forza Italia after the Senate had voted to deprive him of his seat hours earlier.
A majority of senators rejected Berlusconi’s defensive motion which argued that he should remain a member despite a tax fraud conviction earlier this year. Under a 2012 anti-corruption law, which was then supported by his own party, any politician sentenced to more than two years imprisonment should lose his seat.
The vote came after Berlusconi’s appeal to a parallel verdict for corruption was rejected by the courts. The former premier and business tycoon was ordered to pay almost €500 million in damages for the illicit acquisition of a publishing company in 1991. This closed another escape hatch for the disgraced politician as President Giorgio Napolitano is not allowed to grant amnesty to anyone who has been convicted twice — as Berlusconi’s devotees had requested.
A second vote is expected to be called in the Senate within ten days but the outcome is unlikely to be different. The final act should come next month when a plenary session of the body is to confirm the decision to rob Berlusconi of his seat. (more…)
