GIORGIA MELONI (45) - Who is Italy's new prime minister?

The political unrest in Italy has come to a (temporary) end: after the fall of the Draghi government in July, Italy's new prime minister is certain. For the first time, a woman rules over Italy. Giorgia Meloni (45), right-wing and radical.

In Italy, Meloni has been in politics for decades. Abroad, the leader of the far-right "Fratelli d'Italia" has hardly been heard of. Formerly radical and angry, today still radical, but with mass appeal:

Who is Giorgia Meloni (45) - and how long will her right-wing government last?

How Giorgia Meloni becomes mass compatible
This policy is represented by Giorgia Meloni
The political career of Giorgia Meloni
Giorgia Meloni private
How long will the right-wing alliance last?

How Giorgia Meloni becomes mass compatible

From angry radical on the far-right political fringe to future head of government of Italy. Within a few weeks, Meloni manages a 180-degree image change in the election campaign.

Meloni used to speak hatefully and angrily, almost never smiling and often sounding naggingly aggressive. Quite different today: smiling like a mother, compatible with the masses, yet steadfast without compromise. The right-wing mother of the nation.

giorgia meloni fratelli d italia elections in italy — **Giorgia Meloni at the election campaign in Milan: She shows herself close to the people on social media**
*^{_{Photo: Twitter/ Giorgia Meloni}}*

Today, Meloni almost sounds like the Italian version of an Angela Merkel when she talks about "fully agreeing with the process of European integration" and "against new national debt". When she appears before the radical right-wing party Vox in Spain in mid-June, it sounds different. But at that time Meloni also has no idea that she will be on the election campaign trail a month later.

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In Spain, Meloni is railing against "the lies" in conspiracy style. The enemy: anonymous opponents like "climate fundamentalism", bureaucrats from Brussels, the "American investment banks", "leftist circles". It incites against Islam, against foreigners, against the LGBTQ movement and demands support for the "self-determination of peoples" and the "natural family".

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giorgia meloni, elections 2022, italy, formula 1, monza — **The Prime Minister at your fingertips: Meloni at the Fomel 1 in Monza, as she shows on Twitter**
*^{_{Screenshot: Twitter/Giogria Meloni}}*

You won't hear anything more about these demands after July. Political advisers advise against hate speech in the election campaign. They could have a disturbing effect: scare off the majority of voters, worry financial markets and international relations. That she is against the euro is a lie, she then also says. Although a video from 8 March 2014 proves the opposite.

How much appearance, how much reality?

On 10 August, the "Fratelli d'Italia" leader surprised her country and Europe with a video message. In English, Spanish and French she announces: "The Italian right has condemned fascism, the deprivation of democracy and the infamous anti-Jewish laws for decades. We condemn just as unequivocally Nazism and communism, which today represents the only totalitarian ideology of the 20th century still in power in some states." The emblem of their party is the flame of the neo-fascist "Movimento Sociale Italiano", a reference to Mussolini.

In the election campaign, Meloni dresses visually bourgeois-conservative, motherly, never physical. Often long skirts, loose tops, or jeans and jacket.

No one talks about their clothes, they should talk about their words. How much appearance does this new being have? Every now and then the old Meloni breaks through, as recently in Milan: "For Europe, the fun is over now," she shouted there: "In future, Italy will defend its national interests."

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This is the policy of Italy's Prime Minister

Politically, Giorgia Meloni is assigned to the post-fascists. Meloni is convinced that the left-wing establishment in Italy is to blame for Italy's desolate situation. What she wants to do differently sounds rather vacuous in the election manifesto. The "Fratelli" stand for "support for birth and family", for "fairer taxation and protection of purchasing power", "a genuine welfare state", "tourism and happy growth", for "stopping illegal immigration and restoring security for citizens and businesses".

elections in italy, election campaign — **Boring, emphatically unfeminine: With an inconspicuous slouchy look in the election campaign**
*_{^{Screenshot: Twitter/Giorgia Meloni}}*

Meloni wants to transform Italy into a presidential system by amending the constitution. She has so far remained silent on what exactly this should look like. In terms of foreign policy, she admires the anti-democratic leadership style of the controversial Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Unlike Orbán, however, she backs Nato and supports arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Meloni is also against quotas for women; in the EU Parliament, her party already voted against reducing the wage gap between men and women. Meloni wants to promote measures that discourage women from having abortions. She is also against adoption by single people or homosexuals, and against same-sex marriage anyway.

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She wants to abolish the recently introduced citizen's income, a financial support by the state. Meloni supports the merit principle: everyone should get equal opportunities and then it is up to each individual what they make of it.

In future, non-EU citizens should make an advance tax payment when opening a business. The group is to blame for tax evasion because they simply disappear before the controls come after two and a half, Meloni claims without evidence.

Meloni himself praises "God, Fatherland, Family", the motto of the Mussolini dictatorship, as "the most beautiful manifesto of love".

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The political career of Giorgia Meloni

Even as a teenager, Meloni stands out because she is not afraid to speak up. Giorgia Meloni's political career began 30 years ago: On 19 July 1992, she entered "Fronte della Gioventù" joined the youth organisation of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). Her mother Anna is active in the MSI. As a student representative, she sits on television talk shows. As a pupil, she founded the protest movement "Gli Antenati" against the school reform of the Christian Democratic school minister Rosa Russo Iervolino.

1996 election campaign in italy — **At the beginning of her political career:** **Giorgia Meloni in the 1996 election campaign**
*^{_{Screenshot: Twitter}}*

She rises in the youth and student organisations of the neo-fascists before sitting for the first time in the provincial council of Rome from 1998 to 2002 for her party, the "Alleanza Nazionale" (the successor party of the MSI). In 2006, she stands for the "Alleanza Nazionale" in the parliamentary elections in Italy in Rome. She is elected to the "Camera dei deputati". Until 2008, she is Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies, the youngest deputy at the time.

The first time in government

After the 2008 elections, she becomes Minister of Youth and Sports in Berlusconi's new centre-right "Popolo della Libertà" (PdL) alliance. Meloni is the youngest minister in the history of the Italian Republic. In 2009, the PdL and the AN merged and Meloni took over the youth organisation of the new party.

As she increasingly perceives Berlusconi's policies as a "betrayal of the right", Meloni founds the party "Fratelli d'Italia" together with others in December 2012. In the first parliamentary election in February 2013, the party achieved only 1.96 percent. In 2014 Meloni was elected leader of the party. In the 2014 European elections, the party failed to clear the 4 per cent hurdle.

In the 2016 municipal elections in Rome, Meloni runs as a candidate for mayor. She is pregnant at the time. Berlusconi publicly advises her to take better care of her child and not to take on a 14-hour job. With a good 20 percent of the vote, Meloni ends up in third place.

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Giorgia Meloni private

Meloni comes from humble beginnings, from the working-class district of Garbatella in Rome. Together with her mother Anna Paratore, a Sicilian, and her older sister Arianna, she grew up in her grandparents' 45 square metre flat. Meloni's mother earns her money by writing dime novels, which she publishes under the pseudonym "Josy Bell".

The family guardian and her father

It is so cramped in the flat that there is no room for a sofa. Meloni's father Francesco, supposedly a communist and a native of Sardinia, leaves for La Gomera, Canary Islands, when Meloni is still a toddler. Initially there is still contact during the summer holidays, Meloni and her sister visit her father, who runs a restaurant. The last contact was a greeting card for her 13th birthday, she says herself. In 1996, Meloni's father was caught smuggling almost 1500 kilos of marijuana and sentenced to four years in prison. He died of cancer two years ago.

giorgia meloni private — **This is how Meloni shows herself after the birth of her daughter, together with her mother and grandmother.**
*^{_{Screenshot: Facebook/Giorgia Meloni}}*

Meloni is, by his own admission, a fat kid for the time being who is never allowed to play. Young Giorgia reads fantasy and horror literature, from J.R.R. Tolkien to Stephen King. She likes The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. She also dresses up as a hobbit. Her favourite character is Sam Gamdschie, Frodo's companion in "Lord of the Rings", as she tells in her autobiography. Meloni's fantasy is about the eternal struggle between good and evil.

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After graduating from high school, she trained in foreign languages at a hotel management school. Afterwards, she says she works as a waitress, a barmaid in a disco and as a nanny. In 2006, Meloni registered as a freelance journalist with the Italian Journalists' Association.

Although Meloni promotes Catholic marriage as the basis for Italian society, she herself is unmarried. Together with her partner Andrea Giambruno, an Italian TV journalist, she has daughter Ginevra (6).

How long will the right-wing alliance last?

Together with "Lega" and "Forza Italia", Giorgia Meloni will form Italy's first far-right government. In the election campaign, the trio demonstratively symbolised unity - but how stable is this alliance? Since the Second World War, Italy has had a new government about once a year.

giorgia meloni with her rights — **Italy's right-wing front: Salvini, Berlusconi and Meloni (from left)**
*^{_{Screenshot: Twitter/Giorgia Meloni}}*

Political dinosaur Silvio Berlusconi (85) and Meloni have a history. Years ago, she denies him true nationalism and accuses him of "treason". He dismisses her as a woman with no experience in government, let alone abroad, and then she still has a small child. He has already said how he feels about mothers in politics in the mayoral election in Rome. How obediently will Berlusconi now listen to his former pupil? On election Sunday, he irritated most recently with the statement that he was "a bit afraid" of Meloni.

Berlusconi will be 86 in a few days. If he weakens, there is no strong reserve candidate in "Forza Italia". Berlusconi also wants to become president of the Senate Chamber. An exhausting and prestigious job, but one that Meloni is said to no longer trust him with.

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Matteo Salvini (49) of the "Lega" was considered a superstar of the right for years before Meloni stole his thunder in record time on his way to becoming prime minister. Salvini is gambling with his constant changes of course. First he is against the EU, then he cooperates with the pro-European Draghi government as interior minister, only to topple him in the end. His core voters from business and industry in the north are disgruntled. In addition, the "Lega" lost about half of the votes in this election. How solid is Salvini in his party?

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Right-wing disagreement also on foreign policy. Like Berlusconi, Salvini maintains a close relationship with Russia. Meloni, however, has publicly declared his support for NATO. Recently, Salvini called for the lifting of Russia sanctions. After public outcry, he rowed back. Most recently, Berlusconi chatted on a talk show about his dear friend Putin, who actually only wanted to put "decent people" in the government of Ukraine, but had unfortunately slipped into this position. Berlusconi thus talks about Russia's brutal war of aggression.

Dance on eggshells between base and mass

Meloni must now play to a broad audience with her maverick partners. She must not disappoint the grassroots, but also not scare away the political centre. A dance on eggshells.

Meloni does not want to do without the almost 200 billion from the Corona reconstruction fund. Although her party had voted against the aid in the EU Parliament at the time. While Mario Draghi saw the subsidies as a "historic opportunity" for the Italian economy and wanted to promote social justice, digitalisation and renewable energies, Meloni now wants to renegotiate - especially about the supposed "ecological ideology" from Brussels.

What could be in store for Italy is shown by the Marche region. Regional President Francesco Acquaroli (48) banned the distribution of abortion pills in regional counselling centres and hospitals here shortly after taking office. It has become almost impossible to have an abortion in Marche. Officially, only measures because the birth rate is so low. But the regional government also refused to be patron of a gay pride parade.

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Time and again, regional office-holders of the Fratelli make negative headlines with expressions of sympathy for dictator Benito Mussolini or fascism. Acquaroli himself, too: in 2019 he had attended a dinner commemorating Mussolini's "March on Rome" and his seizure of power in 1922.

The journalist who had reported on the celebratory fascist dinner has been under police protection ever since. This is not an isolated case. So far, journalists in Italy have only had to be protected from the mafia.