A jubilant Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party and on course to become Italy’s first woman prime minister, said voters had given the right-wing group a clear mandate to govern and that she would lead a government for all Italians.
Meloni was speaking at her party’s election night campaign centre in Rome after a projection suggested the Brothers of Italy had emerged as the biggest party in Sunday’s elections, with 26 percent of the vote.
Its coalition partners, hardliner Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forward Italy, are expected to win 8.7 percent and 8.2 percent respectively – enough to guarantee a parliamentary majority for the alliance, according to a forecast by polling company SWG on the private TV channel La 7.
“If we are called upon to govern this nation, we will do so for all Italians, with the aim of uniting the people … to make them proud of being Italians, to waive the Italian flag,” Meloni told the media in a much more subdued tone than normal. “You chose us, and we will not betray you,” she said, visibly emotional.
The Democratic Party, which failed to form a broad alliance with other left-leaning and centrist parties thus reducing its chances to govern, is predicted to win 18.3 percent of the vote, pollsters said. The Five Star Movement, long considered to be in decline, seems to have done better than expected, performing well in the south and securing 16.6 percent of the vote.
The centrist Third Pole, composed of Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva and Carlo Calenda’s Azione, got 7.8 percent.
While the results were not yet definite, she said, voters had sent a “clear indication that they want a centre-right government to guide Italy.” As her supporters hugged, Meloni said the fact that the Brothers of Italy had secured the most votes was a moment of pride.
