Giorgia Meloni thanked her family.
She cited her daughter and her partner.
She was excited.
And she was not for less.
She had been waiting half her life for this moment.
She knew she would arrive, she explained, at three in the morning on Monday, after a grueling election day.
Sooner or later the Italians would trust them, she insisted.
The problem is that this confidence, or whatever it is that propelled her to multiply her 2018 result by six and become the most voted force with 26% support, comes at the worst time.
Italy faces a diabolical autumn.
The country, with runaway inflation and one of the highest energy prices in Europe, is facing a slowdown in the economy fraught with risks that in the most adverse scenarios could end up becoming a recession.
That possibility stirs up all the ghosts of that Government of Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, which left the country on the verge of bankruptcy.
Meloni remembers it well, she was his youth minister.
And on Sunday, in her first speech after the overwhelming victory, she showed signs of approaching with great prudence the commission that she will receive from the head of state, Sergio Mattarella.
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The leader of the Brothers of Italy keeps a low profile.
On Monday she avoided appearing.
But the words spoken at dawn were a clear symptom of the concern that runs through her game.
“When this night has passed, we will have to remember that we are not at a point of arrival, but a point of departure.
The conditions in which Italy and the European Union find themselves are particularly complex, we need everyone's contribution and a serene climate, as well as mutual respect”, she launched.
“This is the hour of responsibility, if we want to make history.
Italy has chosen us and we will not betray it.
If we have been called to govern, we will do it for all Italians with the aim of uniting this people, of enhancing what unites it and not what divides it”.
Meloni has come to this conclusion,
The path of Brothers of Italy began, like all political phenomena in Italy in recent decades, lit up by the collapse of Silvio Berlusconi's system of power.
Three members of the grand coalition that had formed
Il Cavaliere
and that he baptized as the People of Freedom did not want to continue in the technical government that was formed after the implosion of the Executive of the owner of Mediaset in 2011. They were very different.
On the one hand, a young Roman woman who had been Minister of Youth.
On the other, the two people who would represent the ideological currents of the party they were about to found.
Guido Crosetto came from the Christian Democracy and embodied the more moderate wing, centered and linked to economic power.
Ignazio La Russa, Berlusconi's former defense minister, instead came from the post-fascist Italian Social Movement.
His middle name is Benito and his inclinations could be said to be less sedate.
Both will now be key pieces of Meloni's political universe.
The Founders and the Praetorian Guard
.
Crosetto does not hold any executive position in the party and is currently a lobbyist for the arms industry.
He is one of the ideologues of the long-term strategy and of the bases to establish peace with the economic
establishment
, suspicious of Meloni's populist histrionics.
He is the author of a famous phrase that sums up his vision: "You do not govern against the ECB."
On Monday, in full electoral hangover, Crosetto insisted that they expect a responsible and very peaceful transition between governments.
A transfer of powers in which information flows, harmony and serves as a precedent for the following changes of guard.
They hope that the outgoing Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, will help them face the coming winter.
Ignazio La Russa, a Sicilian tanned in Milan, also expressed himself in that line in the afternoon.
But his tradition is very different.
“We have tried to give dignity and resistance to the Italian right, which was in danger of disappearing.
Nothing more ”, he explained when questioned about the evolution of the match.
La Russa has a very direct relationship with Meloni, he is the adviser who is not lacking in any important negotiating table, he knows Berlusconi perfectly and will be important to grease the relationship with the other parties in the coalition.
The European strategy.
Raffaele Fitto, former governor of the Apulia region, is his link to Europe.
He has been a Christian Democrat and a member of Forza Italia (nothing strange in a party without a ruling class like the Brothers of Italy).
Today he is in charge of the European party.
He was the one who started a dialogue with the PPE to get out of the extremist corner in which the Brothers of Italy were marginalized.
He began the path of integration in the institutions and brought down some excessively ideological balls.
He promoted the vote for the current president of Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and won a vice president (Latvian Roberts Zile) for the group of conservatives led by Meloni.
Fitto, who opted for Brothers of Italy when the party was still residual, successfully presented the battle against Salvini to prevent him from uniting the two extreme right-wing groups in Europe into a single conglomerate into which Viktor Orbán could enter.
He argued that Meloni would never have been accepted in Europe or Italy in a group shared with the Alternative for Germany (AFD) or the Dutchman's Party for Freedom Geerd Wilders.
And he was right.
It is likely that he will end up being a minister.
The deputy Giovanni Donzelli, on Monday in Rome.ETTORE FERRARI (EFE)
The management of the party and the program.
Meloni relies heavily on family.
Personally and professionally.
His partner and father of his daughter, Andrea Giambruno, is a television journalist.
“He is on the left, we do not think the same about many things.
We discuss issues such as the legalization of soft drugs, ethical issues, the LGTBI world”.
Her sister Arianna is another support and a political reference.
But, above all, her brother-in-law: Francesco Lollobrigida.
He is in charge of managing the party's internal affairs.
He could be confirmed at the head of the parliamentary group, which has multiplied his presence in both Chambers and today is a small army.
Giovanni Donzelli, Meloni's inseparable friend, will continue as the main person in charge of controlling the formation.
The writing of the political program, especially the joint content with the coalition, has been a key episode.
Last August, Meloni sent one of his most faithful collaborators, Giovanbattista Fazzolari, to negotiate with his partners.
He was in charge of setting the limits that could not be crossed, especially in European and Atlantic affairs.
Meloni defined him in his biography as follows: "One of the most intelligent people I have had the fortune to meet."
He is discreet, internationally educated and one of the main promoters of drawing the red line with the League on foreign policy matters.
Meloni's friend and fellow traveler from the Youth Front, he already held a position in the ministry headed by the leader of the Brothers of Italy during the Berlusconi government.
He is expected to have a lot of weight in the new Executive.
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