Few Italians were surprised by who won Italy’s general election on Sunday. The right-wing coalition led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI), a political party descended from the neo-fascists, won 44 percent of the vote and is almost certain to be asked by President Sergio Mattarella to form a government once the new Parliament meets . on October 13. After an elaborate series of consultations, Prime Minister Mario Draghi will hand over power to FdI leader Giorgia Meloni and her team. This should happen around October 27th.
Meloni will be Italy’s first female prime minister. Coincidentally, she will surely take office on the centenary of the March on Rome, the coup that brought Benito Mussolini to power in October 1922. So what does it mean that an ex-fascist will be at the head of a of the largest countries in Europe?
Meloni argues that he is no longer a fascist
Meloni argues that his party has moved away from fascism, like her. However, many Europeans fear that the victory of the right will lead to the “urbanization” of Italy and its transformation into an illiberal democracy, like the recent path of Hungary.
Their fears may be exaggerated. Meloni’s popularity may not last, and he doesn’t have much freedom to change policies.
Over the past two decades, the Italian electorate has been fickle. Parties rise to win 30 to 40 percent of the vote, then fail to govern and fall in the next election. Just a couple of years ago, people feared that Matteo Salvini, the populist leader of the anti-immigrant Lega party, would transform Italian politics. In Sunday’s vote, the Lega fell below 9 percent, half of what it achieved in 2018 and a quarter of its votes in the 2019 European elections.
Now Meloni must govern, not just complain from the opposition bench. She has relatively little government experience (she was a junior minister in the Berlusconi administration 2008-2011), and her party has few people of ministerial caliber.
Meloni’s coalition partners, the Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, may provide experienced ministers, but both parties remain discredited by their past failures. Meloni will likely turn to suitably conservative technocrats for cabinet posts.
Meloni faces the same problem as his predecessors: Italy’s 30-year stagnation. Public debt exceeds 150% of GDP. Italy is an aging society with large pension bills. There are many people who live at or near the poverty line. Tax rates penalize the middle class, but health care, schools and universities are of mixed quality. In foreign affairs, relations with the European Union are strained: Salvini and Berlusconi are considered too close to Russia. These are difficult political challenges for any government.
Meloni will find it harder to address these obstacles than his predecessor, Mario Draghi, whom the EU trusted. But if he fails to do so quickly, his party’s popularity may evaporate. One of the few tough promises made by the right-wing coalition was to abolish the “Citizenship Wage”, a welfare payment that guarantees a financial safety net for the unemployed. The wage has been susceptible to fraud, and many Italians believe it leaves young people with less incentive to look for work. However, it is popular in the economically disadvantaged south of Italy. The Five Star Movement (M5S), which introduced the wage, overtook the right in Naples and some other parts of southern Italy.
It will not be easy for Meloni to approve the policy
Italian voters are transactional, like everyone else. They want to know what the government will do for them. But a Meloni government will have little political or economic room to maneuver.
Britain is going through its own crisis for the opposite reason. It did little to stop Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss from proposing sweeping tax changes, which quickly sent the British pound plummeting in value. Meloni, on the other hand, faces multiple checks and balances that make it difficult for his government to do as it pleases, similar to the limitations on presidential power in the United States.
Meloni can’t even appoint his own cabinet. The President of Italy has this role. The current president can and will reject unsuitable ministers. And Meloni will also have to deal with his coalition partners, who are likely to be at loggerheads. Salvini will be unhappy about the collapse of his party’s support, for example.
Passing laws in Italy is no small feat: Meloni will have to push legislation through two equal houses of Parliament, using procedures that offer endless opportunities for obstruction. Meloni’s coalition will have a majority of 35 seats in the lower house of the Italian Parliament and an even smaller one in the Senate.
Meloni would like to amend Italy’s constitution to introduce a directly elected president, but any such move would require a referendum or a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament. The constitution is popular with voters and its core values are a legacy of resistance to fascism. Italy’s EU membership and EU laws will also limit the legislative independence of a Meloni government, but leaving the EU would be a disaster for Italy and is not on the cards.
Meloni can still thwart the trade
Meloni’s victory will not be a new March on Rome. But LGBTQ+ rights and other social issues will not be among Meloni’s priorities. In June, Meloni kicked off a rally by Vox, Spain’s neo-fascist party, with an impassioned speech calling for the Liberals to protect the traditional family and stop migration from Africa.
It will be difficult for her to act on her beliefs, but Meloni will be able to prevent her opponents from advancing theirs. It is possible that he will move further away from his party’s fascist roots, turning the Brothers of Italy into a conservative party like the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, the CSU. If he does not, his administration may lose its way in endless fights over social issues and immigration and lead international commentators to speculate that it is still fascist.
Marc Gilbert is C. Grove Haines Professor of History at SAIS Europe, the Bologna campus of Johns Hopkins University.