(CN) — European Union politics took a huge lurch to the right on Sunday after an Italian neo-fascist party won parliamentary elections, an outcome showing Italians are ready to see if a new formula can turn around a country beaten down by economic stagnation, high unemployment and geopolitical frustrations.
Giorgia Meloni, the outspoken and energetic leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy, is set to become Italy's first female prime minister and also its first far-right leader since Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was killed at the end of World War II.
Her party's victory was expected, but the result was nonetheless a stunning development for both Italy and the EU. Her victory signals a watershed moment for Europe and one that could have troubling ripple effects across the 27-nation bloc.
Meloni's Brothers of Italy – Fratelli d'Italia in Italian, the same name as the national anthem – is an offshoot of post-fascist parties that sprang up during Italy's post-war transition into a republic.
During her political career, she has expressed admiration for Mussolini as a youth, consistently spoken out against the EU's supranational integration goals, called for a blockade against migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea to southern Italy, opposed allowing gay couples to adopt children, advocated a stronger role for the Roman Catholic church in public life, pushed for lowering business taxes and spoken about the need to look out for Italy's interests first and foremost.
“This is a time for responsibility,” Meloni said after her victory, as reported by ANSA, the Italian state news agency. “If we are called on to govern the nation, we will do it for everyone, to unite a people, by making the most of what unites, rather than what divides.”
Her party picked up about 26% of the votes in the Senate and House of Deputies, the most among Italy's fractured political parties. In previous general elections in 2018, the Brothers of Italy won only about 4% of votes, making this success all about Meloni and her appeal. She's a crowd-pleaser who combines humor, catchy slogans, combativeness and wit to impose herself on people.
The center-left Democratic Party – a pro-EU group that's had a hand in governing Italy for much of the past decade – came in second with a disappointing 19% while the maverick left-leaning 5-Star Movement, the winners of the 2018 general elections, came in third with about 15%.
Turnout was the lowest ever for an Italian general election at about 64%. It was the first time Italians went to the polls in the fall. Elections were called after a technocratic government led by former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi collapsed in July. Regardless, elections were scheduled for next year.
Meloni will rely on the backing of Matteo Salvini's far-right League party and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi's business-friendly Forza Italia to form a right-wing government with a comfortable majority.
Together, the coalition of right-wing parties picked up about 44% of the vote; fractures among center-left and left-wing parties opened the way for Meloni and her allies to form a government.
If chosen to be prime minister, as expected, Meloni would become the first leader from a party with neo-fascist roots to lead any of the six nations that founded the EU – Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Until more recently, far-right nationalist parties mostly survived at the margins of EU politics, but in recent decades far-right parties, often run by charismatic and iconoclastic leaders, have made inroads in many European nations.
In Great Britain, Nigel Farage's anti-immigrant and nationalist political movement played a big role in pushing the country out of the EU. Besides Italy, France is another major country with a formidable far-right presence in the shape of Marine Le Pen and her National Rally. Le Pen has pushed French politics – and French President Emmanuel Macron – to the right.