The little dictator - post-fascist Giorgia Meloni wants to be Draghi's successor

Created: 07/26/2022, 10:48 am

Playing with the fascist legacy: Giorgia Meloni could become the next head of government in Italy.

© Alessandro Bremec/Imago

Mario Draghi has resigned.

Now Giorgia Meloni wants to become Prime Minister in Rome.

The 45-year-old plays with Italy's fascist legacy.

Rome – Is she just the next one-day political miracle in Italy or will Giorgia Meloni change the country?

This question is being asked in Washington, Paris and Berlin.

It is said that Moscow is also watching very closely how things are going in Italian politics.

Following the resignation of Mario Draghi, new elections are scheduled for September 25. According to polls, the right-wing conservative camp will then be in the lead.

And she could be right at the top – as Italy's first female prime minister: Giorgia Meloni, born in 1977, Roman, post-fascist.

New elections in Italy: Giorgia Meloni's neo-fascist party is ahead in polls

Your Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, founded in 2013, is currently leading the polls with 24 percent.

The unmarried mother of a daughter has been pushing for new elections for months.

"I'm ready," she said when half the parliament voted no longer to vote for Mario Draghi last week.

The brothers of Italy achieved just four percent in the 2018 elections, and since then things have been going uphill for the party with a neo-fascist tradition.

The flame symbol that the Italian neo-fascists chose in the 1950s to commemorate dictator Benito Mussolini still burns in the party badge.

Draghi successor: Giorgia Meloni defends Italy's dictator Mussolini

Mussolini accompanies Meloni at every step, whether she likes it or not.

Weeks ago she made a joke about the eternal accusation of fascism against her and her party and chose four words beginning with the letter "M", including "mama" and "sea".

Because "M" is also the first letter of Mussolini's name, it was said that she wanted to send hidden signals to her followers.

Because most of them worship the fascist dictator, or at least have nothing wrong with him.

Again and again, FdI politicians are caught showing the Hitler salute, anti-Semitic, racist or neo-fascist activities.

Meloni, too, once said of Mussolini that although he made mistakes such as the racial laws or entering the war and led an authoritarian regime, he also had successes to show for themselves.

Meloni did not break a taboo with this attitude in Italy.

The Italian constitution was written and passed in 1946 in the spirit of anti-fascism.

However, a part of Italian politics demonstratively does not celebrate the anniversary of the “liberation from Nazi fascism” on April 25th.

Its representatives have been gathering around Meloni since 2013.

Fascism was never taboo in Italy.

also read

"You are his cannon fodder": Now Russian minorities are rebelling against Putin's war

Putin's spokesman surprises with Odessa thesis - Zelenskyj now sees "open gas war against Europe"

Draghi successor: Giorgia Meloni promoted candidatures of two Mussolini great-grandchildren

She has a "relaxed relationship with fascism," said Meloni, who as a teenager was a member of the "Youth Front," the neo-fascist youth organization.

In 2008, as youth minister, she honored two neo-fascist activists killed in an attack in Rome.

Now she's trying to downplay her own past.

There is “no place for fascist, racist and anti-Semitic nostalgics” in the party.

Reality shows the opposite.

Only recently, Meloni advertised the candidatures of two Mussolini great-grandchildren, who were proud of their great-grandfather, for the “Fratelli d'Italia”.

Meloni draws from the basin of right-wing, dissatisfied voters, many of whom want a strong man and now also a strong woman.

She is the front woman of the party, which should have a real personnel problem if she is successful.

Qualified politicians can be counted on one hand among the brothers of Italy.

The party leader, who grew up without a father, completed language training and states that she is a journalist, stands out for her demagogic talent.

She occupies the right-wing populist spectrum even more than Matteo Salvini (Lega).

In terms of foreign policy, the brothers of Italy are committed to NATO and to the side of Ukraine in the war.

She has no ties to Russian oligarchs, Meloni said, targeting Lega boss Matteo Salvini and his ties to Russia.

Meloni against Salvini, this election duel is now waiting for Italy in the summer holidays.