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Giorgia Meloni: As the leader of the strongest party, she could lead the future government as Italy's first female prime minister
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ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP
Politicians from the German AfD, the right-wing national Rassemblement National from France and the Polish PiS congratulated Giorgia Meloni on winning the elections in Italy.
According to initial projections, the Roman woman and her right-wing extremist Fratelli d'Italia were clearly the strongest party in the parliamentary elections - and with a right-wing alliance in the two chambers they probably won the absolute majority of seats.
"We're celebrating with Italy!" said Beatrix von Storch, a member of the AfD Bundestag, on Twitter late on Sunday evening.
With reference to the recent elections in Sweden, in which the right was also successful, she wrote: "Sweden in the north, Italy in the south: left-wing governments are something of the past." Her party colleague Malte Kaufmann tweeted that it was looking for one "great result" for Meloni and her legal alliance: "A good day for Italy - a good day for Europe."
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on the same network: "Congratulations Giorgia Meloni." French MEP Jordan Bardella from Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN) tweeted that the Italians gave European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen "a lesson in humility « would have granted.
The German politician said last week that her agency had "tools" if Italy, under a right-wing government, failed to observe EU rules.
"No threat of any kind can stop democracy," wrote the RN party leader.
»The peoples of Europe lift up their heads and take their destiny back into their own hands.«
Italy
's Social Democrats concede election defeat
According to the first projections by the Italian broadcaster La7, the legal camp around Meloni received 42.8 percent of the votes.
Due to a special feature of Italian electoral law, this should be enough for an absolute majority in parliament.
The La7 calculations assume 105 to 125 of the total of 200 Senate seats for the right camp;
the transmitter Rai comes to 114 to 126.
The coalition partners of the right-wing populist Lega and the conservative Forza Italia, on the other hand, lost favor with the voters.
The Social Democrats who have co-ruled up to now recognized the victory of the right-wing camp and announced that they wanted to join the opposition.
aar/dpa
