Far-right leader on course to be Italy’s first female PM
THE Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has significantly widened her lead amid a final campaign blitz before elections later this month, polls show.
Her Brothers of Italy party is now polling at 25.1 per cent, up more than 5 per cent since June, according to an Ipsos poll published in the Corriere della Sera newspaper yesterday.
The centre-right coalition Ms Meloni is expected to lead is now at a combined 46.6 per cent combined compared with 27.2 per cent for the centre Left – a 19-point advantage.
The Democratic Party remains in second place, despite dipping to 20.5 per cent.
The populist Five Star Movement led by Giuseppe Conti has made gains to 14.5 per cent, surpassing Salvini’s League, which dropped to 12.5 per cent. Italians go to the polls on Sept 25 to elect a new parliament.
Since the resignation of Mario Draghi, the prime minister, in July, support has grown for Ms Meloni, who looks set to become Italy’s next and first female prime minister. She has promised to slash taxes, abolish the “citizens’ wage”, promote “traditional” family values and take back economic sovereignty from the EU. She has also begun campaigning in traditionally Left-leaning regions such as Tuscany and Emilia-romagna. “The red strongholds no longer exist,” she quipped this week in Florence. Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta, meanwhile, is campaigning on the road with an “Ecotour” in an electric bus, hoping to convince undecided voters to back his party, which calls for increasing renewable resources, wage rises, tougher anti-discrimination laws and middle-class tax cuts. He has warned of threats to democracy if Ms Meloni is elected and suggested support for Ukraine could be undermined if Putinfriendly coalition partners are swept to power alongside her – points she vociferously rebukes.