On Sunday, 25 September 2022, as predicted in the exit polls, the Italian electorate propelled Giorgia Meloni to power as Italy’s first female Prime Minister or, more specifically, as President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic. This snap general election followed the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, former European Central Bank president, whose fragile “national unity government” inevitably collapsed in late July 2022. Normally, elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic take place every five years, but the instability of ruling coalitions means that governments change much more frequently.
Italy’s hybrid electoral system, combining Party List Proportional Representation and First-Past-the-Post in its latest version, is partly responsible for Italy having ended up with 69 coalition governments since becoming a democratic republic on 2 June 1946. The relatively stable First Republic, during which successive coalitions were held together between 1946 and 1994 by a single dominant party-Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democrats)-eventually gave way to a kaleidoscope of political parties in which no single party stood out from the rest. In this convoluted world of Italian politics, Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’ Italia (Brothers of Italy), has received 26 per cent of the popular vote, partly at the expense of what are to become its two right-wing coalition partners: Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Forward Italy) and Matteo Salvini’s Lega (League), once a northern secessionist party and now an Italian nationalist party. Meloni is currently President of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, which is “dedicated to individual liberty, national sovereignty, parliamentary democracy, private property, limited government, free trade, family values and the devolution of power.” Her ascendancy has thus been favourably remarked upon by like-minded politicians, including the Prime Ministers of Hungary and Poland, the leaders of Rassemblement National (National Rally) in France, the Sweden Democrats, and Vox in Spain, as well as conservative Republicans in America.
Giorgia Meloni was born in Rome in 1977 and was brought up by a single mother in Garbatella, a working-class neighbourhood in the south of the city that was described in a recent Financial Times article as “an early 20th century experiment in urban living”, after her father walked out on the family when she was just one year old. She made an early start in politics, joining Azione Giovani (Youth Action), the youth wing of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement; MSI) as a 15-year-old in 1992 and engaging in front-line activism. MSI was founded in 1946 by Giorgio Almirante, an ex-fascist journalist who had served under the Italian Socialist Republic during the Second World War, and was later rebranded as the Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance). Meloni rose through the ranks to be elected as president of Azione Giovani in 2004. By 2008, aged 31, she had become Youth and Sport minister under Silvio Berlusconi, making her the youngest-ever government minister in Italy. In 2011, following the dissolution of the Berlusconi-led ruling coalition, she co-founded Fratelli d’ Italia with Ignazio La Russa, now vice president of the Italian Senate.
Meloni can be described as a nativist, nationalist, and protectionist politician. Although often referred to as a Eurosceptic, she prefers to be considered a “Eurorealist” instead, recognising Italy’s shared economic interests with the EU as third-largest member nation in the Eurozone, and particularly because the 240-billion-euro EU coronavirus recovery fund is a financial package that is most welcome in all quarters. Meloni thus seeks to renegotiate the terms of EU membership, staying within a framework of growing European integration. She favours low taxes, albeit coupled with increased welfare spending, and supports conservative family values, which include opposing abortion, LGBT-friendly policies, and gender ideology. She also hopes to restore the demographic balance in Italy by encouraging native-born Italian mothers to have more children. In common with other right-wing populist leaders in Europe, Meloni considers unrestricted immigration and radical Islamism to be among the biggest threats to Italy’s security and sovereignty. Her coalition partners, despite their support for Russia, are reported to have agreed to abide with Italy’s obligations to NATO and to side with Ukraine in the ongoing conflict with Russia. Their family-friendly agenda, anti-crime policies, anti-immigration stance, and desire for energy independence all appear to be widely popular among the citizens of Italy.
Italy’s unstable democracy is characterised by a large number of national and regional political parties, far too many to reasonably keep track of. The consequent fragmentation of the popular vote ensures that it is near-impossible for any single party to gain an overall ruling majority. The need for ideological opponents to compromise and avert crises through power-broking deals can hinder policy making and decisive economic action, inducing a state of political paralysis instead. The transient nature of many governments means that any honeymoon period is soon followed by the partners’ divorce, sometimes acrimonious. Add to this certain politicians’ lust for power, a culture of machismo, high-level corruption, a system of patronage, and an inefficient judiciary, and you have a recipe for uncertainty and continued instability.
Italy’s priorities, like that of other Western nations, include the cost-of-living crisis, energy costs, high inflation, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy has stagnated, despite Italy’s strengths in manufacture of consumer goods. There is low productivity, high unemployment, growing public debt, and a negative trade balance. There remains a persistent economic divide between the prosperous and industrialised North and the poorer and agrarian South. Being a border-zone nation of the EU, along with Greece, Spain, and Malta, Italy has served as an entry point for asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean in boats from North Africa seeking better opportunities in Europe. Quite apart from the social upheaval and economic costs of unplanned mass migration, these intending immigrants have also been widely blamed for crime and prostitution within Italy.
Italy’s recent election result suggests growing support for the victors’ populist agenda. There seems, however, to be a need for meaningful electoral reform, especially in the wake of mostly ineffective attempts to do so during the previous decades. A simplified system for electing its leaders appears necessary if Italy is to move forwards with a stronger and more united vision for the future. Although the latest Italian coalition may have tapped into rising popular sentiment, how long it stays in power is anyone’s guess, given all the challenges that lie ahead and the proven volatility of recent coalitions. Consequently, we can make no reliable long-term predictions about Italy’s political status in the years that lie ahead.
Ashis Banerjee