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ROME.- She wanted the European elections to be a virtual referendum on herself to strengthen herself internally and externally. So it was. The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloniwho had presented herself as a testimonial candidate for her post-fascist party, Brothers of Italy, and had called on voters to write “Giorgia” on their ballots – even knowing that she would never go to Brussels -, achieved his goal and more.
After 18 months in power, in fact, according to a first RAI projection, Meloni’s party he would have garnered 28.5% of the votes and not only is he still the most voted by Italians, but he had a better performance than when he won the elections at the end of 2022.
The first data indicated, thus, that, according to those right-wing winds that blew throughout Europe, Meloni not only surpassed the center-left opposition parties, but also and above all, his allies in the center-right coalitionwhich almost tripled since Forza Italia would have obtained 10%, surpassing Matteo Salvini’s League (8.3%).
In a strategic decision, Meloni, 47, had decided at the end of last April to get personally involved in these elections by presenting herself as a testimonial candidate in the five Italian constituencies, under the campaign slogan “With Giorgia, Italy changes Europe.” “I am running as a candidate to make it clear that on June 8 and 9 there will be a vote to give even more strength to our government and to Italy in Europe and I do it because I always considered myself a soldier: soldiers, when they have to do it, do not “They hesitate to go to the front line,” he said. “If you still believe in me, write only Giorgia” on the ballot “because I am still just one of you, whom you can address without formalities and without distance. Politics is not going to change me, I am not going to isolate myself. But I need to know once again if it is worth living the life I do, I am only interested in the judgment of the Italians,” she explained, launching herself in the first person into these elections, seen by many as virtual midterm elections.
This call to vote for “Giorgia” also meant a way to polarize the competition as much as possible with the woman who is the leader of the opposing side, that is, the leader of the Democratic Party (PD), Elly Shlein. Shlein, who was also a testimonial candidate – something poorly digested by many in her party – led the PD to obtain 23.7%, always according to a first projection by RAI, and to have a much better election with respect to the late elections. of 2022, far surpassing the Five Star Movement of former premier Giuseppe Conte (10.5%), which collapsed. She made a good choice, however, the Green and Left Alliance (6.7%), which had as its candidate Ilaria Salis, a left-wing teacher detained in a confusing incident in Hungary.
Beyond the PD, the main center-left opposition party, in fact what interested Meloni the mostin power from the end of 2022 at the head of a coalition with two other right-wing parties, Forza Italia of the late Silvio Berlusconi and the League of Matteo Salvini, It was to make it clear who’s in charge. An objective that he also more than achieved, since the Brothers of Italy, as had happened in the national elections, made a fool of these two forces and above all his greatest internal competitor, that is, his ally, but adversary, Salvini, vice-premier and Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure of his government.
Unlike the vice-premier and chancellor, Antonio Tajani, who also chose to present himself as a testimonial candidate for Forza Italia, Salvini played another card and did not give in to this very Italian custom of presenting himself as a false candidate. In a more than disruptive move, which caused an internal earthquake in the League, decided to put Roberto Vannaci, a most controversial character, as a candidate in the five constituencies. He is a former Army general who suddenly rose to fame in the middle of last year through a book, The world on the contrary (“The world upside down”), with sexist, xenophobic and homophobic content, which became an editorial phenomenon. Vannacci was not a good bet for Salvini, who apart from not achieving the goal of surpassing Forza Italia, made the legendary “senatur” Umberto Bossi, the 81-year-old creator of the formerly called Northern League forty years ago, announce who stopped voting for his party. “The League has been betrayed,” said Bossi, who made it known that he was going to vote for Marco Reguzzoni, former head of the League’s Deputies bench, who ran as an independent candidate for Forza Italia, the party of his old friend Berlusconi.
Voting is not mandatory in Italy, a country that elected 76 deputies of the 720 members of the European Parliament and which was the last in Europe to close the polls this Sunday at 11 p.m. and where voting could also be done on Saturday. As feared, there was a record abstention: of the 51 million eligible people, less than 50% showed up according to first estimates, a historic drop compared to the 56.1% in the 2019 European elections. a weekday, not a weekend and when it already seems like summer, with more than 30 degrees: many go to the beach,” he told THE NATION Mariana, prosecutor of a deserted polling station in a school in the center of Rome.
Between Saturday and Sunday in Italy, voting was also held to elect mayors of 3,700 localities and for the president of the Piedmont region, where, always according to the first results, the current governor, Alberto Cirio, of Forza Italia and supported by the others, managed to be reconfirmed. forces of Meloni’s winning right-wing coalition. In important cities such as Florence, Bari, Bergamo and Cagliari, always according to preliminary data, the center-left had prevailed.
