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Giorgia Meloni, the head of the Brothers of Italy party, appears poised to win the country’s upcoming election later this month along with a coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s Five Star Movement, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Meloni, 45, has been described in the Italian media as a firebrand with sympathies for Mussolini and who may be in over her head. She is expected to replace Mario Draghi when he resigned in July after losing a confidence vote in parliament. Meloni could be the first female prime minister in Italy’s history and has vowed to cut taxes and close the country’s border from “Islamization,” according to The Associated Press.
“We can no longer allow the image of Italian conservatives, a bastion of freedom and defense of western values, to continue to be defiled,” she said, according to the Financial Times.
Her party is considered controversial and “far-right.” Carlo Bastasin, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institute, wrote that her party is the only one in Italy that has “never fully renounced its fascist background.”
Her likely election solidifies our forecast that anti-establishment parties will grow in popularity after COVID-19 lockdowns and as the world’s economy circles in the toilet due to runaway inflation. Bastasin noted that the Brothers of Italy have benefited from a meteoric rise since 2018, when the party pulled in a meager 2 percent of the vote. The party was pulling in about 24 percent, according to a poll last month.
The country’s Cattaneo Institute, a think tank, released a study last month that found Italy’s conservative bloc may end up with 258 lawmakers out of 400 in the Chamber of Deputies, and 131 out of 200 in the Senate, Reuters reported.
TRENDPOST: “PAINTED AS A RADICAL”. The Trends Journal has long noted that to propagandize to the public, the media stigmatizes politicians by putting them into narrow categories such as right, left, middle, conservative, liberal, progressive, etc.
Love them, hate them, by their deeds you shall know them.
Meloni is no different.
Her challengers have called her a dangerous demagogue who will “embolden the radical right and sour relations with Brussels while allying Italy with Eurosceptic and nationalist powers such as Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary,” the FT reported.
Of course, Orbán’s close relationship with Moscow has ruffled feathers across the EU. The U.S.’s influence over Europe is enormous and any country that does not march in lockstep with Washington’s failed policy is considered sympathetic to Russia.
Unlike Salvini, who has spoken out against sanctions imposed on Russia, Meloni has defended their usefulness. Both parties have condemned Russia’s invasion, but Meloni contends that the sanctions against Russia have been effective and are beginning to take their toll on the Russian GDP.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said the country’s GDP will likely contract by about 2 percent. He said there was reason to be optimistic because the decline is not as severe as expected.
The Guardian reported that Meloni’s position is a far cry from 2014, during Russia’s annexation of Crimea. She said at the time that sanctions imposed on Russia “massacred” businesses in the country.
TREND FORECAST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on Drahgi’s failed premiership during the COVID-19 outbreak. (See “ITALIANS TAKE TO THE STREETS TO RAIL AGAINST WORKPLACE ‘GREEN PASS,” 19 Oct 2021, “ITALY DEMANDS COVID PASSPORTS,” 10 Aug 2021 and “ITALY’S FIVE STAR MOVEMENT SPLITS DUE TO INFIGHTING OVER APPROACH TO UKRAINE,” 28 Jun 2022).
Draghi symbolized the destruction of the anti-euro, anti-eurozone, anti-immigration populist movements when their leaders voted Draghi into office. Italy, the first western nation to launch the COVID War in 2020 and the first to impose draconian lockdown mandates on its population, is once again leading the way when it comes to stripping freedoms from its people with its “No Jab, No Job” Green Passport declaration.
We said at the time that there will be growing anti-vax, anti-establishment, anti-immigration, anti-Eurozone movements spreading throughout Europe. This trend will greatly accelerate as economies decline, civil unrest grows and the refugee crisis worsens.