Because of the left's failure to improve the lives of the working class
Italy drifted to the right before the rise of Giorgia Meloni
Meloni, Berlusconi and Salvini celebrate victory.
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Italian right-wing politician Giorgia Meloni scored a stunning success in the Italian elections on September 25, and is sure to become Italy's prime minister.
Her Brothers of Italy party won 26% of the vote, making it the largest party nationally.
Ultimately, Meloni's right-wing coalition will be able to achieve an overwhelming majority in both chambers of the Italian parliament.
Part of the justification for this result achieved by the "Brothers of Italy" party lies in the weakness of the opposition.
The selective Five Star Movement, which received 15 percent of the vote, did not join forces with the "center-left Democrats", who won 19 percent of the vote, and after years of failing to improve working-class living standards, the two parties were unable to mobilize the center-left base. Participation in the elections was the weakest in the history of Italy, as 64% of Italians voted in the elections.
Normalization of the state of right-wing parties
This is not the story of Italy making a sudden rush to the right, but rather the product of a long period of normalization of right-wing parties.
The Italian media has long described the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as having a "moderate" influence, but he played a key role in the successes of the far right today, and he boasts that he "invented the left of the right" by allying with the "League and the Fascists". And we “legitimized and constitutionalized them.”
From the start, Berlusconi made harsh statements against immigrants, routinely downplayed former Prime Minister Benito Mussolini's crimes, and appointed neo-fascists to lifelong positions.
Berlusconi's last government collapsed as a result of the sovereign debt crisis in 2011, after which he backed a government of technocrats.
In 2013, he was banned from public office, after proving that he had committed tax fraud. This allowed the League first and Brothers of Italy parties to lead the right-wing coalition, which allowed them to present their narrative of civilized decline and national resistance.
The Rise of the "Italian Brothers"
Much of the reason for the recent rise of the Brothers of Italy is due to its position as the only major opposition to the multi-party government of Mario Draghi, which was joined by Italian politician Matteo Salvini and former Prime Minister Berlusconi when it was formed in February 2021. Meloni said that it would pursue a "constructive" approach to Draghi, and continue to distribute funding in the post-pandemic era, but without making any agreements with the center-left.
This cemented her as the leader of a right-wing coalition, with other parties promising to make her prime minister.
If Italy is to be ruled now by the first right-wing prime minister since 1945, this does not mean a return to the past, as the Brothers of Italy party is rooted in the Italian Social Movement, the neo-fascist party formed in 1946, which participated in the elections, but He maintained a deep hostility to the republic that had formed at the end of the anti-fascist resistance.
rewrite history
During Berlusconi's government, MSI leaders accepted liberal-democratic values, ditched the old name, and condemned Mussolini's anti-Semitism.
However, many of them still defend the legacy of post-World War II neo-fascism, and the Fraternity of Italy was formed in 2012 as an outright reaffirmation of the SMI tradition, which aims to rewrite the history books to highlight the crimes of the Italian Social Movement. It also draws on other, more universal concepts, such as the "Great Replacement" of Europeans with immigrants, a conspiracy theory that has inspired many terrorist attacks by whites.
The Brothers of Italy has promised to make major changes to the republic's post-World War II political legacy, one of which is to marginalize parliament and parties by putting the process of electing the president outright, but many critics fear it will go any further.
This month, the Brothers of Italy and the League were the only Italian parties to vote against a European Parliament resolution condemning the election of Hungary's President Viktor Orbán as an "electoral tyranny." Meloni's party discussed a constitutional ban on Views of defending communism or Islamic extremism,” in imitation of the sweeping measures in place in Budapest to suppress left-wing criticism.
Attacks against immigrants
It usually takes at least a month to form a government, even when there is a clearly identifiable majority.
The leaders of the Brothers of Italy said they expected the outgoing government to take basic measures on the rise in energy prices before they came to power, yet this crisis, along with the war in Ukraine, could cause major problems.
Despite her statements, the majority of Meloni's popular base opposes the sanctions against Russia, and the League's leader has expressed doubts about the future of these sanctions.
It can be expected that Meloni and her fellow members of the new parliament will launch major attacks against immigrants, trade unions and other groups they call "the left establishment." The call for a "naval blockade" in the Mediterranean aims to strengthen the EU's existing border regimes. .
Right-wing parties are also planning to make a significant tax cut and forego providing aid to job seekers.
Even though they have a large majority in parliament, and with so much trouble nowadays, it is not clear whether the right will be able to fully implement its agenda, and the real concerns lie in who the government will choose to throw the current crisis on.
• Since the beginning of his rule, Berlusconi has been making harsh statements against immigrants, and has routinely downplayed the importance of the crimes of former Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, and appointed neo-fascists to positions that last for life.
• Meloni and her fellow members of the new parliament are expected to launch major attacks against immigrants, labor unions and other groups that they call "the left establishment."
David Browder ■ Rome-based writer
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