Far-right is rising in Italy

The phenomenon of rise of right wing nationalist parties in Europe is witnessing a major renaissance in Italy.

Far-right is rising in Italy

---

• France and Italy: National Rally, the party of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, suffered a defeat in regional elections, losing a key southern region that it seemed well positioned to win. But in Italy, Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who copies Le Pen’s style, is gaining popularity. She is poised to become the standard-bearer of the Italian right, despite her party’s historical roots in postwar neofascism.
• Why out of the alliacen: The far-right party Brothers of Italy was the only one in Italy that refused to join the broad government coalition led by Mario Draghi, ex-boss of the ECB. Giorgia Meloni, the party leader, had then explained the decision by indicating her party’s staunch opposition to the former European Central Bank president, a technocrat despised by her electoral base. Now she is talking about leading the government when Italy holds its next general election, in 2023 at the latest.
• Brothers of Italy: This party has been growing at an impressive pace. The party is currently polling above 20 percent, virtually matching Matteo Salvini’s League, the leading party of the center-right coalition, and is on track to become the second-largest political force in Italy. Brothers of Italy has even matched the center-left Democratic Party, deeply embroiled in its own internal struggles. Meloni is indicated by conservative voters as the most popular leader among the country’s right-wing voters.
• Post-war constitution was anti-fascist: Italy is the original place of fascism, the land of Benito Mussolini. The rise of Brothers of Italy’s shows it could reach a broader electorate compared to the parties that in postwar Italy took the inheritance of the post-fascist tradition. Despite accepting strong anti-fascist principles in the postwar constitution, Italy still has a relationship with its fascist past, and several political parties and groups have been tied to that tradition. Strange, but true.
• The road ahead: Meloni’s party is the contemporary heir of the Italian Social Movement, an originally neofascist party that went through a long, multiphase process of repudiation of its roots, something similar to the “dédiabolisation,” or de-demonization, of the National Front—now renamed National Rally—that was seen in France with the rise of Marine Le Pen. Brothers of Italy still sports the flame symbol used by the Italian Social Movement in its logo. Meloni now has to make a choice: she can double down on the nationalistic, far-right ethos of her party, galvanizing her loyal base, or she could broaden her political horizon, slowly turning Brothers of Italy into a big-tent party hosting conservatives of different persuasions.
• Knowledge centre:

1. Fascism - It was a political ideology dominating parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe from 1919 to 1945. Europe’s first fascist leader was Italy's Benito Mussolini, who took the name of his party from the Latin word "fasces", a bundle of elm or birch rods (usually containing an ax) used as a symbol of penal authority in ancient Rome. Fascist parties had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, etc. At the end of World War II, the major European fascist parties were broken up, and in some countries (Italy and West Germany) they were officially banned.
2. Right wing nationalism in Europe - Nationalism was always a feature across Europe's political spectrum but a recent boom in voter support for right-wing and populist parties is surprising. It is visible from Germany, where the AfD became the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag, to Spain, where Vox  became the third largest force in parliament. Voters, frustrated with the political establishment, and with concerns about globalisation, immigration, a dilution of national identity and the European Union, are voting these right-wingers into power. In the European Parliament, nine far-right parties have formed a new bloc, called Identity and Democracy (ID). 

 

Join PT courses | PT Youtube | PT App | Contribute |  Testimonials