The opinion – Andira Vitale

Can we analyze the present in the spirit and terms of the past? Italo Calvino, one of Italy’s pride, has a saying for such situations: “We live in a country where results are always discussed, not causes.”

So, let’s follow in the footsteps of Calvino, a true intellectual, to “understand the election results”, which is considered an important turning point for Italy.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the “Fratelli d’Italy” party, defends the accusations of “far-right, fascist” by saying, “I am a patriot who wants to save my country’s future.” Who is this charismatic woman who has not changed both her line and rhetoric despite hearing the same criticisms for years, who is small but has a loud voice?

Before moving on to Meloni, it’s worth taking a look at Italy’s last 10 years in Calvino’s footsteps and saying “The King is Naked” for everyone’s sake: ever-changing short-term governments; coalitions; dominant Chinese capital and products; gradually weakening domestic production; unhappy local artists pushed into the background; local employers with decreasing incomes; Irregular and unqualified migration of thousands from Africa and the Greater Middle East every day: environments that encourage illegal immigration for cheap labor; on the other hand, educated Italian youth who left their country to find a job in better conditions abroad; broken families; increasing drug use; high crime rate, including immigrants; the atmosphere of fear in the public; The unfair competition environment of the EU operating under the leadership of Germany and France…

Later, the dramatic colors of the Covid epidemic were added to this not heartwarming picture. Italy was one of the countries with the highest human and economic losses. At this critical juncture, the Government of Giuseppe Conte, which was doing well in both foreign and domestic policy, was surprisingly overthrown at a time when it should not have been. Afterwards, with the Mario Draghi government, Italy completely entered the axis of America, NATO and the EU. At a time when the people were unhappy with the economic crisis, Italy also joined the countries that entered the race to send arms to Ukraine. While Meloni was dismissed as “fascist”, Russian artists were excluded. Those who supported the Russian policy and reacted to the bans on Russian artists and their works were criticized and postponed. The price increases caused by the energy crisis were the last straw…

It was at just such a period that early general elections were held. It was seen that the easy of using the “Meloni Stick” was chosen rather than the realistic gray explanations of the political parties to solve the problems of the people. Almost all politicians have blown the winds of fear of Meloni. “Either black or white,” they said.

And in the early general elections held on Sunday, Giorgia Meloni’s party “Fratelli d’Italia” rose from the polls as the first party “despite all the opposition campaigns carried out at home and abroad”. The people, who did not trust politics and politicians, either did not go to the polls or took care of “those who promised to protect the Italian people”. The people gave the message that they don’t want any political or economic problems. Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio, who was once the leader of the party, did not take into account the foreign policy warnings and criticizes him and took the line of Mario Draghi, neither himself nor his newly founded party could have a presence. He suffered a tragic collapse. The democratic left PD led by Enrico Letta, which took care of the foreign policy of the Draghi government, suffered a major collapse. Letta has announced that he will be leaving the post with the results coming in. Under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, who advocated similar policies with Meloni but was in Mario Draghi’s government, the Lega suffered a major collapse. The rate of votes, which was at the top in the last elections, decreased at the same rate. The winners were Meloni, who remained in the opposition, and Giuseppe Conte, the leader of the 5-star movement, who opposed the government’s foreign policy and the sending of weapons to Ukraine, despite being in the government, and subsequently withdrew its support from the government.

Election results belong to 51 million who voted. Now, according to the poll results, it is expected that a centre-right government will be formed under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni, and will be the first female prime minister of the country. Is this rise of a party that managed to increase its vote rate from 4.3 percent in the general elections 4 years ago to 26 percent in these elections, is it a surprise? In that case, while the coalition government of the Fratelli d’Italia and the Lega led by Matteo Salvini and the Forza Italia parties, positioned on the centre-right, one of the former prime ministers, remained in power, the other parties that came out of the elections unsuccessfully said, “We have been Italy and Italy for years. What have we done for the people of Italy? How much contact did we have with them?” It’s time to think…

As for Meloni, this is exactly the spirit of the time I described above, and with his discourse that reached the public regarding the developments and problems in this period, he quickly brought his party to power for 9 years. By saying “Italians first”. By opposing the influx of thousands of illegal and unqualified immigrants every day… By criticizing drug use and LGBT promotion, which he sees among the causes of the deterioration of social and national identity…