As one of the most consequential elections in Italy’s postwar history approaches, the frontrunner to become prime minister is already seeking to make an impact on the international stage. Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, recently released a slick video in which she embraces European integration and distances herself from her movement’s neo-fascist origins. Speaking in English, French and Spanish, she notes that the Italian right had “handed fascism over to history for decades”. She and her party, Ms Meloni asserts, belong to mainstream western conservatism – an Italian equivalent of the Conservative party and US Republicans.
Polls continue to suggest that the rightwing alliance comprising Brothers of Italy, the nationalist League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia will triumph on 25 September, with Ms Meloni’s party in pole position. As Italy’s first female prime minister, she would become a major player in Europe’s affairs at a critical moment of crisis. So how reassured should her intended audience be by this attempt to detoxify her brand?
