Prime Minister Mario Draghi has been centrist and popular. Here's why are voters poised to replace him with Giorgia Meloni and the Fratelli d'Italia party.
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But national votes, even seemingly decisive ones, rarely bring the tidal change that they might in, say, France or the United States. Italy’s last national vote, in 2018, is a good example. That election looked as if it were the start of a populist revolution, and it led initially to a government of anti-establishment forces on the left and right. But their agreement was brittle. One government collapsed and then the next.
She compares Fratelli d’Italia to the Tories of Britain and Likud in Israel — conservative parties, not norm-wreckers. And she has portrayed herself as working at times to support the initiatives of Draghi, including on measures related to Ukraine, a country that she has backed unequivocally against Russia.“She has developed a way to talk to international interlocutors, sounding reasonable,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Italian International Affairs Institute.
It wasn’t always like this. In 2019, the leader of another far-right party, Matteo Salvini, orchestrated a government collapse in an attempt to force new elections and win power for himself. Salvini’s League, at the time, was by far the most popular party. But his gambit didn’t work.