Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, current secretary general of the Democratic Party (PD), had been trying for some time to weave a broad front capable of standing up to the right-wing coalition, which – with its unbreakable unity – leads the Italian polls. His dream was to form a powerful progressive bloc to stop Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy, winner in the polls, in the style of the support Emmanuel Macron received in the second round of the French presidential election against Marine Le Pen.
But Italy is not France, and the atomization of its politics has pulverized any center-left unity plan. One month before the early elections to be held on September 25, the division is insurmountable and is catapulting Meloni, a 45-year-old Roman ally of Vox and who was active in the neo-fascist youth, who has all the numbers to win in the ballot boxes by the League by Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia by Silvio Berlusconi.
After these two parties and the 5 Star Movement (M5E) toppled Mario Draghi's executive in July, the PD moved quickly to add ex-minister Carlo Calenda's centrist Action to its bloc, a rising figure already he had run – unsuccessfully – for mayor of Rome. The union was essential: the Italian electoral law, known as Rosatellum, clearly favors coalitions by dividing 221 parliamentarians into single-member constituencies in which the candidate who obtains one more vote than the rest wins the seat. The pact with the liberals was based on completing the work left half done by the former president of the European Central Bank, especially the recovery plan, although it was brief. Shortly afterwards the liberal Calenda left the coalition and decided to ally himself with Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva, proposing a third centrist pole to the electorate. His argument was that the PD had decided to add other leftist and communist formations with which he felt uncomfortable. For their part, the polls give them over 6% of the votes.
The result is a left that, according to an EMG survey carried out between August 8 and 9, adds 31.5% of the votes, compared to 48% for the right. The M5E, on the downside, also competes separately and barely reaches 10%. Letta closed the doors of the coalition on them after they turned their backs on Draghi in the latest Italian political storm.
Meloni wastes no time and has already held his first rally in Ancona, the capital of Marche, a region governed by his party that is considered the political laboratory of far-rightists. “It is a personal battle, I want to liberate this nation. I am not afraid!”, she launched before a thousand followers in this Adriatic city that could become the first woman to lead the country.
Meloni's program is not very different from that of other European far-right parties. Charge against immigration, European institutions or LGBTI "lobbies". In his first election, Meloni did not hesitate to attack the community management of the rise in energy prices, although he was quick to stress that he does not want to leave the EU. In recent weeks she has concentrated on trying to present herself abroad as a reliable leader, and has even released videos in three different languages (English, Spanish and French) denying any "anti-democratic drift" and underlining her support for Ukraine. Her values, she has said, are close to Israeli Likud and American Republicans. “I have read that the victory of the Brothers of Italy would be a disaster, that it would lead to an authoritarian change, to the exit of Italy from the euro and other such nonsense. None of this is true,” she promises, despite the fact that her party is the political heir to the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, formed by Mussolini's allies in 1945.
His protagonism has also led to loud controversies. The last one, publishing an explicit video of a rape of a Ukrainian woman in the middle of the street by an asylum seeker, using the aggression for electoral purposes despite the desperation of the victim. He has also proposed to end the "deviations" of young people. “By deviations I mean drug use, alcohol abuse, eating disorders. Meloni says that the obese are deviant? Imagine if I can say these things, when I have been obese and I have been harassed ”, she has defended herself.
