By Virginia Pietromarchi In the winter of 2019, nightclubs across Italy were swaying to a steady electro beat driven by just a few words, repeated in a loop: “I am Giorgia. I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m Italian, I’m Christian.” It was a catchy line delivered by Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), a relatively small far-right party, during a speech in October that year The nightclub remix was intended to mock Meloni, but three years later, her ultraconservative and nationalistic messaging seems to have also become a hit – and the 45-year-old politician is widely expected to become Italy’s next Prime Minister when the country goes to the polls on 25 September. Known for her steely determination and heavy Roman accent, Meloni has overseen her party’s meteoric rise from 4% support in 2018 to a projected 25% ahead of the election. Her uncompromising attitude has struck a chord with frustrated Italians who, after seven governments in 11 tumultuous years, see Meloni as the only political option left untested. Her decision to stay firmly in opposition by refusing to support Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s outgoing Government – unlike her coalition allies including the far-right hardliner Matteo Salvini and political dinosaur Silvio Berlusconi – has earned her even more popularity and solidified her “outsider” status, observers say. But her hardline views on immigration and the preservation of the “Christian family” have raised fears of a return to controversial policies. Critics say her rhetoric poses a threat to civil rights and will pave the way for far-right views to take centre stage in the country’s political discourse.   Foreign policy   Outside Italy, Meloni’s harsh criticism of the European Union (EU) and her alignment with Eurosceptic figures, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have raised eyebrows over the direction of the EU’s fourth-largest economy. And then there are the concerns revolving around her party’s fascist origins – a bond that, critics say, she has not done enough to cut ties with. So who exactly is the favourite to become Italy’s first female Prime Minister? Born in 1977, Meloni was 15 years old when she knocked on the door of the youth wing of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), a party founded after World War II by the nostalgic former members of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship. Located in a quiet street in the working class neighbourhood of Garbatella in Rome, Meloni found in the movement a “second family”, as she described in her autobiography titled, Io sono Giorgia (I am Giorgia).   ‘God, family, and the homeland’   Edoardo Novelli, a sociologist and professor of political communication at Roma Tre University, said Meloni’s vision trails the “God, family, and the homeland” motto: one based on the Christian identity, the traditional family model and of a nation firstly composed of Italian patriots. “This will create an idea that there are ‘right and wrong’ models, citizens of category A and B,” Novelli added. “But this is not just an abstract vision, it will translate into real choices such as laws, government acts, opportunities, and financing programmes,” he warned. Yet as the electoral campaign draws to a close, and the chances of a win become more concrete, Meloni has had to conduct a balancing act to reassure Brussels that she, and her coalition, will not be a danger to Europe’s stability, especially as Italy is to receive the biggest chunk of an EU recovery fund worth 200 billion euros (approximately $ 200 billion). She has repeatedly pledged her loyalty to the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and confirmed Italy would continue supporting Ukraine while imposing sanctions on Russia. “She has very much softened her tone on certain themes such as the distrust towards international finance markets and the EU, a change of attitude that has been carefully studied to enter government as a strong party,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a professor of history at Rome’s LUISS university with a focus on Italian right-wing parties. Critics warn, however, that it is all a façade. “There has been no evolution, but just a resumption of the historical themes of the Italian right and of neo-fascism presented in a more captivating way,” said Piero Ignazi, a professor at the University of Bologna. “The tones have changed, but it’s a matter of nuances and camouflage value,” Ignazi said. At one of her latest rallies in Milan, she warned that “the good times are over” for the EU, while she insisted on one of her old-flagship themes sounding the alarm over the “mass immigration which is a weapon of big economic and financial powers used to lower competition among workers”. Her party has also refused to back last Friday (16) an EU Parliament’s report condemning Hungary for its restrictions on civil liberties. Critics also point to a proposal of Meloni’s coalition for a change of the constitution that would introduce a directly elected president, bringing Italy’s parliamentary democracy closer to a presidential system. Constitutional changes, as well as any centralisation of power, are traditionally considered taboos among left-wing supporters who regard the chart as the byproduct of Italy’s anti-fascist history. Meloni has time and again rejected the claim she poses a danger to democracy. Her party “handed fascism over to history for decades now” and “unambiguously condemns the suppression of democracy and the ignominious anti-Jewish laws,” she said in a video published in early August in Spanish, English, and French. Whatever the risks, Italians are screaming for a change as the country prepares for a harsh winter. The task at hand, for whoever emerges victorious on 25 September, is sobering – and Meloni knows it: “I can’t say that in front of such responsibility my hands aren’t shaking,” she acknowledged last week. (This article was first published by Al-Jazeera yesterday [19])