Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni ended her campaign for the weekend’s elections in Naples on Friday amid speculation her long-predicted victory could be hurt by a shift in support in the south.
The 45-year-old leader of Italy’s post-fascist Brothers faced questions from a mostly young audience at a closing rally on the beach ahead of a campaign blackout ahead of Sunday’s vote.
“I’m a patriot… we’re a Southern party as well as a national party,” Meloni said, vowing to stand up for a region that has long suffered from higher unemployment and poverty than anywhere else.
The latest official polls, released two weeks ago, gave Meloni and her right-wing alliance, including Matteo Salvini’s Liga and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, an almost unstoppable lead.
Most analysts still believe they will win on Sunday and form the first far-right government in Italy since the ouster of dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II.
But it may not be the landslide they expected as support for both Meloni’s allies and rivals has dwindled.
The Five Star Movement, which came to power in the last general election in 2018 on a wave of support in the South, appears to be on the rise.
Although his anti-establishment reputation has been tarnished after sharing power with most of his main competitors, leader Giuseppe Conte, the former prime minister, has fought back.
“The game isn’t quite over yet because I think Five Star will have more numbers down south than expected,” said Franco Pavoncello, a professor of political science at John Cabot University in Rome.
He cited support in the South for Citizen Income, an anti-poverty measure introduced by Five Star three years ago that Meloni has pledged to scrap.
She insisted on Friday that the state should support those who can’t work, for example due to health reasons, but said those who can should find a job.
It “inspires trust,” said a supporter in Naples, 71-year-old Leone Carmelo.
– Russian, European series –
From winning just 4 percent in the 2018 election to 24 percent forecast today, Meloni’s party has made a meteoric rise.
A self-confessed “Christian wife and mother”, Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant, she has eclipsed Salvini as the face of Italy’s popular far right.
But unless the league and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia maintain their support, their road to power could be jeopardized.
As they wrapped up their election campaign on Friday, Salvini and Berlusconi made headlines on issues dear to their supporters – Europe and Russia.
In a series of media interviews, Salvini expressed his outrage at EU leader Ursula von der Leyen’s alleged attempt to interfere in the election.
Von der Leyen told an audience in the United States overnight that the EU could use “tools” if a far-right government in Rome proved as disruptive as Hungary and Poland.
“What is that, a threat?” Salvini tweeted in response. “Disgraceful arrogance.”
He asked them to resign or apologize and later announced a sit-in at the European Commission’s Rome office.
Berlusconi, meanwhile, was forced to clarify his remarks about Vladimir Putin after he claimed the Russian leader had been “pushed” by his entourage to invade Ukraine.
“The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable,” he said after an outcry.
Russia is one of several fault lines within the right-wing coalition that could endanger the stability of any government they form.
While Berlusconi and Salvini have long-standing ties to Moscow, Meloni has been a strong supporter of EU sanctions against Russia and arms supplies to Ukraine.
Her main rival, Enrico Letta of the centre-left Democratic Party, has warned that a populist Eurosceptic government in Rome would pose a risk to the EU.
“Everyone who told us that the Italian right is moderate is lying,” he said before his last rally in Rome late on Friday.
“Two days before the vote, side with Putin and demand von der Leyen’s resignation… what else has to happen?”
Although his party is just behind Meloni’s, without a broad left-wing coalition – which he tried but failed – he stands little chance of taking power.
