The extreme right conquered this Sunday the third largest economy in the European Union, with the historic victory of Giorgia Meloni’s party in the legislative elections in Italy, a country that for the first time since 1945 it is about to be governed by a post-fascist leader.
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The formation of Meloni, Brothers of Italy, which comes from the neo-fascist tradition, consolidated itself as the greatest force, going from the modest 4.3% obtained four years ago to 22-26%, an unprecedented result, according to the data on foot. of urn
The post-fascist party far outnumbers its far-right allies in Matteo Salvini’s La Liga (8.5-12.5%) and conservative tycoon Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (6-8%).
For the first time in history since the Second World War, a neo-fascist formation is going to govern Italy thanks to the fact that it was presented with a right-wing coalition that would obtain a total of between 36.5% and 46.5% of the votes.
“With these numbers we can govern”, said the deputy Fabio Rampelli at the Parco dei Principi hotel, where the leadership of the FdI and the coalition have met in Rome, as soon as the first polls are known, although it is not easy yet to know how they will be finally the results.
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The leader of the League, the sovereignist Matteo Salvini, celebrated the advantage of his coalition both in the Senate and in the Chamber, although his party plummeted to between 8.5 and 12.5 percent, below the polls that were published 15 days ago.
“The center-right has an advantage in both the House and the Senate. It will be a long night, but now I want to say thank you,” Salvini said on Twitter, becoming the first politician to comment on the results.
The Democratic Party (PD), the main party on the left, failed to mobilize the electorate to stop the advance of the extreme right and had to settle for a figure ranging between 17% and 21%.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5E) obtained between 13.5% and 17.5% of the vote, below its historical score of more than 30% achieved in 2018, but better than estimated in the polls.
“According to the exit polls, it is a historic result. The right-wing coalition would obtain the highest percentage of votes ever recorded by right-wing parties in the history of Western Europe from 1945 to today,” the Italian study center CISE reacted in a note. (Iran: protests over the death of a young man that provoke unprecedented social mobilization)
‘We will govern to unite Italians’: Meloni
The far-right leader Brothers of Italy (FdI), Giorgia Meloni, affirmed this Sunday that the right will govern “to unite all Italians” after her party was the most voted in the country in the general elections, so she will surely become the first woman to govern Italy.
“If we will govern this nation, we will do it for all Italians” to “exalt what unites and not what divides, because our goal is that Italians could be proud of being Italians,” he said in his first statements after his victory in the elections held this Sunday.
The ghost of abstinence
The ghost of abstention, which has been around since the last polls were published 15 days ago, as required by law, when it was estimated at a possible 40%, finally made its appearance, with a percentage close to 36%, which becomes the highest in the history of general elections in Italy.
Until now, that dubious honor fell on the last elections, in 2018, when it was 27 percent, in a constant rise in the last decade, since in 2006 abstention was limited to 17 percent.
The first data on the turnout at the polls, at 12:00 noon (10:00 GMT), was 19.21 percent, a figure very similar to the 19.43 percent recorded at the same time in 2018, but it increased in the second communication of the Ministry of the Interior, at 5:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT) when it went to 51.16 percent compared to 58.40 percent four years ago.
According to the first analyses, the influx decreases throughout the country, but especially in the south where in cities like Naples it fell by up to 10 points.
pictures of the day
“I had never seen queues to vote in Italy, that’s good,” said Fi leader Silvio Berlusconi, who starred in one of the images of the day when he waited his turn to put the ballot in the ballot box together with his partner and party deputy, Marta Fascina, while they kissed. Later, when asked as she left the polling station, if she would sing the Bella Ciao, the song of the Italian partisans, she assured: “no, it’s a left-wing song.”
Although, without a doubt, it has been Meloni who has captured the greatest interest from photographers and journalists, to the point that she decided to postpone her vote from morning to night to avoid inconvenience to other voters.
But in the meantime, he left everyone amazed and amused with a video posted on his social networks in which he appeared with two melons at the height of his chest to play with his last name (the plural of melon). And smiling at the camera and winking, he said: “September 25. I’ve said everything.”
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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