luchtschip schreef op 26 september 2022 03:00:
Giorgia Meloni: Italy's far right set to win election - exit polls
Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has won Italy's election, according to exit polls, and is on course to become the country's first female prime minister.
If they are confirmed, Ms Meloni will aim to form Italy's most right-wing government since World War Two.
That will alarm much of Europe as Italy is the EU's third-biggest economy.
She is predicted to win between 22-26% of the vote, says a Rai exit poll, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left.
That dominance was underlined by the first projection from Rai, which gave her more than a quarter of the vote for the Senate. Projections are based on concrete results. Italians also vote for the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.
Ms Meloni's right-wing alliance now looks to have control of both houses, with a projected 42.2% of the Senate vote.
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Although she has worked hard to soften her image, emphasising her support for Ukraine and diluting anti-EU rhetoric, she leads a party rooted in a post-war movement that rose out of dictator Benito Mussolini's fascists.
Earlier this year she outlined her priorities in a raucous speech to Spain's far-right Vox party: "Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology... no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration... no to big international finance... no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!"
Italy is a founding father of the European Union and a member of Nato, and Ms Meloni's rhetoric on the EU places her close to Hungary's nationalist leader Viktor Orban.
Her allies, Matteo Salvini of the far-right League and former PM Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia, have both had close ties with Russia. Mr Berlusconi, 85, claimed last week that Vladimir Putin was pushed into invading Ukraine while Mr Salvini has called into question Western sanctions on Moscow.
Ms Meloni wants to revisit Italian reforms agreed with the EU in return for almost €200bn (£178bn) in post-Covid recovery grants and loans, arguing that the energy crisis has changed the situation.
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63029909