Italy, capital Warsaw

Italy, it is often said, is a political laboratory and anticipates trends at the European level: fascism, Eurocommunism, Berlusconi's telepopulism, the cyberpopulism of the 5-Star Movement... If this is the case now, get ready because it would mean a brake on integration European Union and a serious threat to the survival of liberal democracies.

The victory of the far-right coalition -let's stop whitewashing and call things by their name- in this Sunday's elections is indisputable (44%), despite the high abstention that has broken records, representing more than a third of the electorate .

Brothers of Italy, the formation led by Giorgia Meloni, has become the first party (26.13%), when just five years ago it entered Parliament by the hair.

The League has been greatly resized (9%) and Forza Italia is already in the shadow of what it was (8%).

Meloni has thus become the undisputed leader of the coalition, taking advantage of the slow decline of Berlusconism and Salvini's blunders, in addition to capitalizing on having been the only opposition to Mario Draghi's government of national unity.

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Last minute of the elections in Italy

The far-right coalition has benefited from the division of the progressive bloc, the reduction of parliamentarians and an electoral law, the

according to which 37% of deputies and senators are elected with the majority system in uninominal colleges.

By presenting themselves together, Meloni, Salvini and Berlusconi took almost all those seats: there was not, nor could there be, a party with these rules of the game.

The Democratic Party (19%) failed to forge a "broad front", beyond adding small formations such as the Green-Left Alliance and +Europe.

Nor did he know how to mobilize the citizenry in the face of the danger of a far-right government: the center-left coalition as a whole won 26.5%.

Under the leadership of former president Giuseppe Conte and raising the flag of citizenship income, the 5-Star Movement (15%) has managed not only to avoid the blow that everyone predicted, but to remain the first party in the south of the peninsula.

Finally,

The right, therefore, has a large absolute majority in both Chambers.

It is not something new under the Alps, but, unlike the three previous conservative governments (1994, 2001-06, 2008-11), this time the hegemony is not exercised by Forza Italia, but by Brothers of Italy.

Although it was a party-hacienda led by a demagogic businessman, Berlusconi's formation was part of the family of the popular: Meloni, on the other hand, is the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists, a party that includes the Poles of Law and Justice, Vox and the Sweden Democrats.

Her ideology is well represented by the motto “God, Country and Family”, of infamous memory, to which the acceptance of the free market in its neoliberal version is associated.

Meloni mixes the post-fascist tradition —in his symbol the tricolor flame of the Italian Social Movement, founded in 1946 by ex-combatants from the Republic of Saló, shines— with Anglo-Saxon authoritarian neoconservatism.

His relations with Trumpism are excellent.

Brothers of Italy, in short, is one of the declensions of that great global family that I have called extreme right 2.0, whose government models are the illiberal democracies of Hungary and Poland.

It is no coincidence that Orbán and Morawiecki were the first to congratulate Meloni.

it is one of the declensions of that great global family that I have called extreme right 2.0, whose government models are the illiberal democracies of Hungary and Poland.

It is no coincidence that Orbán and Morawiecki were the first to congratulate Meloni.

it is one of the declensions of that great global family that I have called extreme right 2.0, whose government models are the illiberal democracies of Hungary and Poland.

It is no coincidence that Orbán and Morawiecki were the first to congratulate Meloni.

There are now several unknowns to be cleared up: who will preside over the Government?

Meloni or a more "presentable" figure from outside?

Let us remember that the assignment is the power of the President of the Republic.

Will Salvini and Berlusconi accept their new secondary role without question?

What will be the foreign policy of the new Executive?

Will Salvini's closeness with Putin be just a memory of the past?

Will they want to force a renegotiation with Brussels of the post-pandemic Recovery Plan?

Do not forget that Italy, in addition to having a large public debt (153% of GDP), is the main beneficiary of the Next Generation EU fund with nearly 200,000 million euros.

And, finally, will a presidential reform of the Constitution be launched?

They are not trivial issues.

The international context, marked by the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and the last throes of the pandemic, is especially unstable, but with these results a government of this type, as long as it does not exceed some red lines, has a high probability of reaching the end of the legislature.

With this correlation of forces within the coalition, furthermore, the line will be drawn by Meloni.

The most likely, then, is a Polish scenario, summarized in the triad Atlanticism-sovereignty-ultra-conservatism.

Link to Washington and support for kyiv's war effort will not be questioned.

Under the slogan of the defense of national interests, the rope will be pulled with Brussels in everything possible, strengthening the axis with the Visegrad countries.

Domestically, rights will be curtailed, starting with migrants, abortion,

the LGTBI collective and gender equality.

In short: Italy, capital Warsaw.

Steven Forti

is a professor of Contemporary History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the author of

(21st century).

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