After a whirlwind of 68 governments in the past 80 years, Italy has finally settled on stability in the form of Giorgia Meloni. Rome’s first female prime minister is famed for her sharp wit and political skill but has been dragged down by links to far-right and fascist movements. On Thursday, Meloni smashed a political record in a country famed for political chaos: becoming the leader of the longest-serving uninterrupted government since World War Two.
Her leadership has surpassed the 1,412 days set by media tycoon and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2005. But the 49-year-old, who has moderated her populist instincts after her election victory in October 2022, faces an uphill task to maintain a steady coalition at the 2027 parliamentary elections, with opinion polls suggesting fragmentation in Italy’s political landscape. Whether the elections could spell the end of Meloni’s ruling right-wing coalition, comprising Meloni's Brothers of Italy, the League and Forza Italia, remains unclear.
The Meloni era has been defined by fiscal conservatism, and a hard-line immigration policy. On social media, she has become infamous for her facial expressions and public eye-rolls on the world stage. There was anxiety in Europe when Meloni first stepped onto the global stage, a former cabinet minister for youth policies in the fourth Berlusconi government, who had founded and in 2014 become leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party.
In Italy, Meloni has espoused fiercely conservative social values and opposes gay marriage. Just in 2022, speaking at a rally for Spain’s far right Vox party, Meloni made the declaration, according to Brittanica: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby... no to gender ideology... no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!” She has made her mark on the world stage, including by standing up to US president Donald Trump in June this year - despite having previously been known as the ‘Trump Whisperer’. When the Italian defence ministry did not let US military aircraft use a Sicilian airbase during its war on Iran without parliamentary approval, the relationship deteriorated significantly as Trump lashed out at Rome.
Meloni later slammed Trump’s attacks on the Pope as "unacceptable", prompting the US president to insult the Italian prime minister herself. Weeks later in June, Trump was claiming that Meloni had “begged” him to take a picture with her at the G7 summit, an anecdote she described as “completely fabricated”, adding that it's a “pity” he shows more animosity to his allies than to the “enemies of the West”. "There is a genuine risk that we could return to the worst kind of a splintered parliament next time around," Roberto D'Alimonte, a professor of Italian politics at Rome's Luiss university, told the news agency.
The political system in Rome uses proportional representation, leading to widespread division and relying on the maintenance of fragile governing coalitions between disparate parties. The average lifespan of an Italian government since 1946 has been roughly 14 months, with the shortest lasting 22 days in 1954 and the longest being Silvio Berlusconi’s second government between 2001 and 2005. Much of this apparent volatility can be put down to what Italy treats as a new government.
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