Italians braced for seismic shifts on Saturday, on the eve of an election forecast that would give Italy the most right-wing government since World War II.
Out with the internationally respected Mario Draghi and in – according to polls – the eurosceptic Giorgia Meloni, leader of the post-fascist party Brothers of Italy, widely touted as the country’s first female prime minister.
“The country is eager for a change, a new face,” Wolfango Piccoli of London-based political risk consultancy Teneo told AFP.
The vote comes as Italy grapples with a range of crises, from rampant inflation and extreme weather events linked to climate change to an energy crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
The campaign sparked by Draghi’s ouster in July ended on Friday, giving Italians a day’s respite as campaigning is banned pending a vote.
It was a chance to look back at some of the highlights of a race in which parties tried to persuade voters with ideas like sending goods from northern to southern Italy via the metro and tackling climate change with cannabis.
Meloni, 45, has worked hard in recent weeks to reassure shy investors and a worried Brussels that her party’s historical ties to supporters of dictator Benito Mussolini are a thing of the past.
She’s softened her tone, worn lots of pink and posted a video of herself making traditional pastries from the Puglia region on TikTok.
But she channeled the warrior Aragorn from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings on Thursday at the closing rally for the right-wing coalition uniting her brothers of Italy with Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigrant League party and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
– TikTok Jokes –
The self-proclaimed “Christian mother” seamlessly transitioned from fantasy king to blaming the left for the country’s “drug dealers, thieves, rapists and the mafia,” adding, “This Italy ends Sunday.”
Berlusconi, 85, was by her side. The media mogul, who is on trial for bribing starlets not to testify about his allegedly erotic parties, has campaigned mostly online, wooing the country’s grannies and housewives with promises of back-home salaries.
He’s also been following the youth election with a few TikTok jokes – including one about not trying to steal her girlfriends.
Former interior minister Salvini, 49, campaigned under the slogan “Credo” (I think) and earned him a censure from the Catholic Church.
Fearful of losing a sizeable chunk of his supporters to Meloni, Salvini has tried to differentiate himself by calling for an end to sanctions on Russia and railing against Brussels.
However, the end of his campaign was overshadowed by a video clip in which he described a blind league candidate as “an eye for Italians” on Thursday.
Center-left leader Enrico Letta, leader of the Democratic Party (PD), rocked out in an electric van to his closing rally – reminding voters of his earlier efforts to promote green transport when his electric campaign bus ran out of battery.
His main competitor for votes on the left, Giuseppe Conte, leader of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), appeared to hold out longer.
He has been photographed so many times standing head and shoulders above the crowd amidst a crowd of supporters that the media has dubbed him the “Traveling Madonna”.
