ROME (AP) — The main candidates in Italy’s general election Sunday to elect a new Parliament and determine who next governs the country include some familiar…
The main candidates in Italy’s general election Sunday to elect a new Parliament and determine who next governs the country include some familiar names and some lesser-known ones. They range from from three-time Premier Silvio Berlusconi to far-right opposition leader Giorgia Meloni, who is ahead in opinion polls and intent on becoming Italy’s first woman to hold the premiership.
Here are the main players in the Sept. 25 election:
GIORGIA MELONI
Riding high in voter opinion surveys for weeks now, Meloni might become Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II, and its first ever female leader. Her Brothers of Italy party has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity since the vote in 2018, when it polled just over 4%.
In the now-expiring legislature, Meloni refused to have her party, which she co-founded in 2012, join any coalition government, including the pandemic unity government under outgoing Premier Mario Draghi.
At 45, Meloni would also be one of Italy’s youngest premiers. She contends that the European Union is too bureaucratic but has said she wouldn’t push for any “Italexit” – pulling the country out of the shared euro currency — and depicts herself as a staunch backer of NATO. She rallies against what she calls LGBT “lobbies’’ and promotes what she says is Europe’s “Christian identity.”
But in sharp contrast to her fellow leaders on Italy’s right — anti-migrant Matteo Salvini and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who have both openly admired Russian President Vladimir Putin — Meloni backs military aid for Ukraine.
She is dogged by contentions she hasn’t made an unambiguous break with her party’s neo-fascist roots.
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ENRICO LETTA
Letta, the 56-year-old leader of the Democratic Party, Italy’s main center-left force, is Meloni’s chief election rival.
