Italy's Hard Right Set for Election Victory. NewsWire

NewsWire: 8/10/22

• Italy is headed for early elections in September after Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned. The collapse of Draghi’s government opens the door to a takeover by the populist right. (Associated Press)
• NH: On September 25, Italian voters will head to the polls for yet another general election. This follows the spectacular collapse of Mario Draghi’s centrist unity government, which imploded after Draghi was snubbed by his coalition partners.
• Before becoming Prime Minister, Draghi was celebrated throughout Europe as the senior technocrat who saved the Euro back in 2012. As Prime Minister, he is known for his good relationship with the EU and his strong support of the EU's condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His resignation could pave the way for a new government dominated by parties that are far less enthused about the EU and more sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. The party currently leading in the polls with 24% support is Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy.
• Close behind, at 23%, is Enrico Letta’s center-left Democratic Party. But altogether, the total support for the right easily exceeds that of the left. Meloni is expected to lead a right-wing alliance that includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Their latest combined polling stands at 45%, compared to just under 34% for the left-wing equivalent.

• Since Italy's last general election in 2018, political sentiment has seen several big shifts.
• The most important has been the collapse in support for the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the equally large rise in support for Brothers of Italy. Five Star voters, concentrated mainly in the "Mezzogiorno" south, are genuine populists--very left on economic policy and very right on cultural issues. Forced to choose, most of these voters have opted to go with their cultural instincts. And Meloni has made that choice easier by embracing a more populist economic agenda than would be palatable among northern "Lega" voters. So Brothers has grown at the expense of Five Star.
• Another shift is that Forza Italia's profile has risen. Berlusconi's choice to partner with the harder-right parties has turned him into a kingmaker. The number of small new parties on both the right and left has grown, but they have only attracted single-digit support and tend to cancel each other out.

• The upcoming election is shaping up to be a bruising fight. Immigration has once again emerged as a hot-button issue, which has boosted the right. Earlier this week, centrist party Azione withdrew from Letta's center-left alliance mere days after it was formed. Azione's leader Carlo Calenda could not go along with Letta's new agreement to partner with the hard-left Left and Green parties ("Sinistra Italiana" and "Europa Verde"), both of which have regularly voted against Draghi. Azione's departure has further dimmed the left's hopes for victory.
• Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has accused those whose actions led to Draghi’s resignation--Salvini, Berlusconi, and the Five Star Movement's Giuseppe Contere--of doing Russia’s bidding. By implication, it is also charging Russia with direct interference in Italian politics.
• In our series analyzing France’s presidential election results (see “France Re-Elects Macron: What It Means for Europe (Part 1)”), we predicted that the tide of populism has yet to peak in Europe. And we predicted that the next step would be Italy. Here we are. When asked by Politico what’s to come if Meloni’s alliance wins, Giovanni Orsina, professor of political history at Luiss University in Rome, put it plainly: It would usher in “the most right-wing government in the history of the Italian republic.”
• Brothers of Italy would also be the first party with fascist origins to come to power in Western Europe since the end of World War II. We've come full circle. Back in the late 1970s, people worried about Italy voting in the Communist party, which very nearly happened in 1948. Now people are worried about Italy voting in a Fascist party, which of course did indeed happen back in 1923.