In August, Italians are generally on vacation and politics is a taboo. Not this year. Italy has plunged into an unusual summer election (voting on 25 September), after the fall of the fragile coalition government in July. Now there is nothing but talk of agreements, candidates, constituencies and bartering. Italian holidays are ruined.
Unless an unlikely political miracle, Giorgia Meloni will become prime minister. It will be a historic moment for Italy and for Europe: Meloni is at the head of the populist and far-right Brothers of Italy party, direct heir of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist formation with which he shares the flame in the symbol. One of the central eurozone countries will be ruled by a center-right coalition, largely Eurosceptic hostile to immigrants. The alliance between Meloni, Matteo Salvini’s League and the remnants of Forza Italia, the party of 85-year-old Silvio Berlusconi, will almost certainly get a large majority.
The left is weak and divided, and the links with what remains of the ultra-populist 5-star Movement (M5s, which split in June) have been broken. In the absence of broad alliances, in the mixed and complex Italian electoral system – even after the cut in the number of parliamentarians decreed by a battle of the five stars that culminated in a referendum – the opposition appears to be in disastrous conditions. The government of former banker Mario Draghi was very popular, but it was destined to end without leaving any political legacy.
The long agony of emergency governments and fragile coalitions seems to be nearing its end. Meloni’s government will last a long time, barring scandals or economic crises, not to be ruled out. Some have observed the paradox of his statement just as the 100th anniversary of the first takeover of power by the fascists in Italy occurs: Benito Mussolini’s march on Rome, which took place in October 1922, which marked the beginning of the end for democracy. Italian and the birth of an authoritarian regime that lasted twenty years. But, let’s face it immediately, Meloni is not a fascist. He will not lead armed groups in black shirts and he will not try to overthrow liberal democracy. Beyond these basic elements, however, the signs are worrying for Italy, for Europe and for democracy. Meloni and Salvini are populists of the same sort as Viktor Orbán, Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. They built their success on the promise of big tax cuts that favor the richest, a nationalist rhetoric against immigrants and refugees (with nods to the grand replacement theory) and anti-European discourses. All this took place largely on social networks, where Meloni and Salvini are expert users, unlike Berlusconi, who has never gone beyond TV, by far his favorite means of communication.
While Meloni officially and angrily denies any link with fascism, the base of his party includes many militants “nostalgic” for Mussolini’s regime. Examples of these links (slogans, statues, greetings) are common and often dismissed as mere folklore, nothing serious, just appearance. Councilors in the local administrations of Meloni’s party have often been seen saluting the Roman, praising Mussolini and indulging in explicit racism. The moderate image that Meloni has carefully cultivated for years does not always seem to have been communicated at the base of the movement.
Opinions
Italian anomaly
“Italy has a chronic problem of political instability,” he writes The country. “You have had 67 governments in the past 76 years. And in the last twenty Silvio Berlusconi has been the only prime minister capable of remaining in office for more than two consecutive years. Why is it so difficult to govern in the country? ”. The Rome correspondent of the Spanish newspaper, Daniel Verdú, explains that “in addition to an electoral law that favors coalitions but not individual parties and a perfect bicameral system created after the end of fascism to avoid the rise of totalitarianism, there is a another endemic problem of Italian politics: “defugeeism”. According to Verdú, this is one of the main causes of the country’s political instability, “aggravated by the lack of disapproval and sanctions for those who change shirts in parliament”. Despite this, Verdù continues, “in Italy the very complex map of parties, platforms and blocs does not prevent the formation of governments, given the great ability to reach coalition agreements. The problem usually arises within coalitions, as happened to the executive led by Mario Draghi, who fell due to the friction and discontent manifested by the 5 Star Movement ”. On Politico analysts Tommaso Grossi and Francesco De Angelis focus on another characteristic of Italian politics. “The historian Donald Sassoon”, they write, “had defined the alleged political immaturity complained of by experts and intellectuals ‘the Italian anomaly’. The problems facing the country are often identified as part of this exceptionalism, which prevents Italy from functioning like other Western democracies and also explains its historic predilection for a strong leader ”. The institutional weaknesses, aggravated by an electoral law that prevents solid majorities in parliament, have defined another characteristic: the use of technical leaders in difficult times, at the expense of the pact that in democracies should bind rulers and governed. ◆
Moreover, Italy is a country marked for decades by wars of memory, often around monuments linked to the Second World War and the riots of the seventies. It is clear that the rehabilitation of that past, the idea that “Mussolini did many good things”, will regain credence if Meloni becomes head of the government. But Salvini is probably the most dangerous character. His term as interior minister was marked by a chaotic policy on migratory flows, with the illegal docking in Italian ports imposed on migrant boats. In any new government, the Northern League leader is likely to play an important role.
After the invasion of Ukraine, both Salvini and Meloni quickly backtracked on their ties to Moscow and the support they had shown in the past for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite this, Italian foreign policy promises to be much softer towards the Kremlin after the elections. During the Ukrainian crisis, Berlusconi instead continued to be the spokesperson for his old friend Putin. It’s easy to dismiss the former prime minister as a joke character, but his influence continues to weigh.
Italian democracy will survive Meloni and Italy will remain in the European Union and the eurozone, but it could suffer serious damage, especially if the beautiful Italian anti-fascist constitution is modified. Meloni said he wanted the direct election of the president of the republic. Nobody knows what the effects of the drastic cut in parliamentarians (approved in the name of a populist “cost reduction of politics”) will be on the Italian system, but in all likelihood there will be a much more conservative parliament, with a male majority and old.
A new coalition between Italy, Hungary and Poland will be born in Europe, with strong ties to the ideas and slogans of the United States of Donald Trump. Meloni and Salvini have no answers for Italy’s endless economic crisis, aside from blaming Europe, migrants, bankers and Soros. Their proposals for flat tax (a single rate income tax) will likely make things worse. Darker days await Italy, after the ruins and divisions caused by the pandemic, the effects of which are still being felt. Meloni’s decision to stay out of the Draghi-led coalition will yield her a rich harvest. You have carefully cultivated the image of mother and patriot. Since Berlusconi cleared the far right politically in the 1990s, many former fascists have become ministers. But the highest office had never been held by anyone from that tradition. At least until today. ◆ gim
John Foot he teaches Italian history at the University of Bristol in the UK. His latest book published in Italian is Italy and its stories 1945-2019 (Laterza 2019).