Giorgia Meloni is an Italian politician known for leading a far-right party: the Fratelli d'Italia. She joined far-right groups of neo-fascist positions while still in her teens. She was part of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), the Alleanza Nazionale (AN) and Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL), all right-wing or far-right parties.
She was councilor for the province of Rome, ran for mayor of the Italian capital and was Minister of Youth during Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet, between 2008 and 2011. She founded the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), becoming president of that party in 2014 and contributing to its rise on the Italian political scene.
Read too: What is Fascism?
Topics of this article
- 1 - Summary about Giorgia Meloni
- 2 - Birth and youth of Giorgia Meloni
- 3 - Giorgia Meloni's political career
- 4 - Entry of Giorgia Meloni to the Fratelli d’Italia
- 5 - Political positions of Giorgia Meloni
Summary about Giorgia Meloni
Giorgia Meloni is a far-right politician from Italy.
She joined neo-fascist groups as early as her teens.
She was Youth Minister during Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet.
She founded Fratelli d'Italia in 2012, becoming leader of the party in 2014.
She is known for her extremist positions, with statements praising Mussolini and homophobic opinions.
Birth and youth of Giorgia Meloni
Georgia Meloni was born in the city of Rome, Italy, on January 15, 1977, being created in a district of the city of Rome called Garbatella. She is the daughter of a tax consultant who abandoned his family when Meloni was still a child. She had contact with politics at a very young age, joining neo-fascist movements as a teenager.
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Political career of Giorgia Meloni
In 1992, Meloni joined Fronte della Gioventú, a youth wing of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), a far-right party considered an heir to the political legacy of the fascism in italy and founded by former members of the Fascist Party. In 1996, she became part of the Alleanza Nazionale (AN), a conservative party that grew out of the MSI.
In 1998, at the age of 21, Giorgia Meloni was elected Councilor of the Province of Rome, remaining in this role until 2002. Her political activity transformed her into the first female president of the AN youth section.
In 2006, Meloni managed to be elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, by the Alleanza Nazionale. At that time, she was already acting as vice-president of the AN, being the youngest vice-president in the history of that party. This began Meloni's long stay in the Italian Chamber.
The Italian political system is bicameral, consisting of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. In the Chamber of Deputies, Meloni managed to be elected by different Italian provinces — Lazio, Lombardy and Latina. This contributed to transforming it into one of the most influential far-right politicians in Italy.
In 2008, she was appointed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a conservative politician in Italy, to take over the Ministry of Youth. Meloni remained in the position throughout Berlusconi's cabinet, losing the position only in 2011, when he resigned as prime minister.
In 2009, Alleanza Nazionale joined Forza Italia, another right-wing party with conservative ideology, and together they founded Il Popolo della Libertà.
Read too: After all, was Nazism on the left or on the right?
Giorgia Meloni's ticket to the Fratelli d'Italia
In 2012, Giorgia Meloni had some disagreements in Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL), and that is why she left that party. She and other conservative politicians teamed up to launch the Fratelli d'Italia (FdI), a far-right political party with radical and extremely conservative political views.
Meloni established herself as a Fratelli d'Italia powerhouse and took over the party's leadership in 2014, a position she still holds. From that year onwards, Meloni was gaining popularity, as well as your political party.
In 2016, she ran for mayoralty in Rome and ended the race in third place, obtaining almost 270,000 votes, which corresponded to 20.62% of the valid votes. In 2018, FdI ran in Italy's general election, with a modest result. Meloni's party received 4.35% of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies and 4.26% of the votes for the Senate.
The FdI won few seats in the Italian Parliament, but was part of a coalition of parties centre-right which won the most seats in Parliament in that election, although it did not win a clear majority. Between 2018 and 2022, Meloni and her party stood in opposition to the two prime ministers of the period: Giuseppe Conte and Mario Draghi.
In the 2022 general election, held on September 25, Meloni's party alone won more than 26% of the vote., making this the most significant vote in the history of the FdI. In addition, the party was part of a right-wing coalition that obtained more than 43% of the votes, winning a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
This was the first time a neo-fascist party had taken power in Italy since the overthrow of fascism in 1945. By the expression of the FdI vote, it is expected that, in the coming weeks, Giorgia Meloni will be named Prime Minister of Italy, the first woman to assume the position.
Political positions of Giorgia Meloni
In addition to leading a political party considered the successor of Italian fascism, Meloni is known for having controversial and prejudiced positions. Between her lines, she assumes that Mussolini was a good ruler for Italy, in addition to being openly against the immigrationand advocate of measures to prevent illegal immigrants from entering Italian territory.
It is also marked by homophobic positions, as it announces itself against same-sex marriage. She is also against abortion and has already taken a stand against It iseuthanasia. Meloni also defends the renegotiation of the agreements that form the European Union, positions islamophobic and the rising birth rate in his country.
Many specialists in Italian politics point out that it is surrounded by sympathetic people dO Nazismand that his political rise was the result of a media campaign that sought to assuage his political extremism.
Image credits:
[1] Vincenzo Izzo It is Shutterstock
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