After Sunday's parliamentary elections, it is more and more certain that Italy will get the first woman prime minister in its history. Giorgia Meloni is expected to lead Italy's first right-wing government since Benito Mussolini and World War II after her nationalist Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-fascist roots, won around 26% of the vote.
The forty-five-year-old Roman woman had a meteoric rise in the party, which four years ago won only 4% of the vote.
Meloni has headed the Brothers of Italy since 2014. The party was formed a decade ago to carry on the spirit and legacy of Italy's far right, which traces its roots to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which replaced the Fascist Party.
"I am a woman, a mother, an Italian, a Christian, and no one can take that away from me," Meloni said at a rally, while campaigning under the old fascist slogan "God, fatherland and family."
He points out the LGBT lobby, George Soros and mass immigration as his enemies, while he advocates for the introduction of a naval blockade on Libya and supported Vladimir Putin until the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"Maloni is not a danger to democracy, but he is a danger to the European Union." She is on the same side as Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orbán and wants a Europe of nations. Italy could become Putin's Trojan horse, which could weaken Europe through it," says analyst Gianluca Passarella from Sapienza University in Rome.
