Was yesterday’s vote for Meloni – or anti-everything and everybody else?
Probably both in a country that has tried every shade of politics in its almost 70 governments since World War Two.
Italy beloved by the world for its food, art, history, and culture is just not working for a large part of its own population. A perpetually stagnant economy has helped fuel a massive brain drain.
The political gerontocracy of recycled ageing men in suits has prompted a massive desire for change. Enough Italians feel that Giorgia Meloni represents that – for better or worse.
Her rigidity on LGBT rights and immigration finds favour in Italy, where Catholic conservatism still holds sway, and which has long felt it has shouldered the burden of Europe’s migration crisis.
And while she insists her party has consigned fascism to history, a country that never had the equivalent of Germany’s denazification has allowed traces of its dark past to permeate through its post-war politics.
There is, undoubtedly, a section of Meloni’s base that still glorifies Il Duce [war-time fascist dictator Benito Mussolini]. She knows it is now incumbent upon her to reassure Italians – and Europeans – that she really has moved on.
Is Meloni the future? At least for a while, certainly. But in a country whose governments last on average just over a year, she knows Italians’ patience with the latest political novelty can run out quickly.
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Source: bbc.com