On Sunday, Italians went to the polls in large numbers to elect a new parliament, which will include the far-right and propose the prime minister as Mario Draghi’s successor, AFP reports. Numerous queues formed at polling stations in various regions of the country.

Giorgia Maloney, head of the (post-fascist) Fratelli d’Italia party, credited with nearly a quarter of the vote in recent polls, is the favorite to lead a far-right coalition government, only 45 years old. strongly dominates the right-wing classics, reports news.ro

This is a real earthquake in Italy, the founding country of the European Community and the third economy of the Eurozone, as well as in the European Union (EU), which will have to deal with this ideologue close to Hungarian sovereignist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. .

“I play to win, not to participate,” said Matteo Salvini, head of the (anti-immigration) League, who sees his party “on the podium of one, two or three” after the vote.

“I can’t wait to go back”

“I can’t wait to return tomorrow to the government of this extraordinary country,” said Salvini, who was deputy prime minister and interior minister in the first government of Giuseppe Conte (2018-2019).

“In Europe, everyone is anxious to see Maloney in the government (…). The party is over, Italy will start defending its national interests,” warned Georgia Maloney in the election campaign.

This former admirer of Mussolini, whose motto is “God, country, family”, managed to demonize his party and catalyze with his name the discontent and disillusionment of Italians during the opposition to the national unity government of Mario Draghi.

But this is not the end. “Unpredictable, elections take place on emotions and at the last moment,” Emiliana De Blasio, a professor of sociology at the University of Louis in Rome, told AFP, emphasizing the key role of the undecided, estimated at 20%.

The assessment of the Five Star Movement (M5S, formerly anti-establishment), which is credited with introducing a minimum income for the poorest, and the Democratic Party (PD, centre-left), well implanted at the local level, may bring surprises, especially in the south of Italy.

“I vote for PD. I have always voted for the right, but now I am afraid of Mrs. Maloney. It’s a right to intolerance,” Benedetta Tinti, 28, a steel worker in Bologna (centre), told AFP.

Whatever government is elected, its path is already full of obstacles.

He will have to deal with a crisis caused by soaring prices, while Italy struggles with a debt of 150% of GDP, the highest level in the eurozone after Greece.

In this context, the help of the European post-covid recovery plan, of which Italy is the main beneficiary, will be indispensable to keep the peninsula afloat.

“Italy cannot afford to be without these sums of money,” historian Mark Lazar told AFP, assessing Maloney’s “very limited room for maneuver” in the economy.

Instead, it may face Brussels, as well as Warsaw and Budapest “in matters of protecting national interests against European ones.”

Georgia Maloney is calling for a “review of the Stability Pact rules”, suspended by the health crisis, which set a deficit limit of 3% of GDP and 60% in the case of debt.

This pure-blooded Romanian demonstrates her ultra-conservatism in social matters.

“Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBTI lobby! Yes to sexual identity, not gender ideology! Yes – to the culture of life, and not in the abyss of death!” – shouted the one who promises to fight “against the Islamization of Europe” in June.

His coming to power would mean shutting down the country, which lands tens of thousands of migrants every year, a prospect that worries humanitarian NGOs.

The instability of Italy’s government is legendary, and experts agree that this coalition will be short-lived and Maloney will struggle to find allies, be it the indomitable Silvio Berlusconi or Matteo Salvini.

Voting ends at 21.00 GMT (Monday, 0.00 Romanian time), when the first exit polls will give an image of the election results.