Italy is suspended for a hard-right leader as the nation votes in a snap election

September 27, 2022: -On Sunday, Italians head to the polls in a nationwide vote that could return the country’s nearest female prime minister and the first government led by the far-right since World War II.

Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party was created in 2012 but had its roots in Italy’s 20th-century neo-fascist movement that came after the death of fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1945.

The Brothers of Italy party expects to gain the largest share of the vote for a single party on Sunday. After winning 4% of the vote in the 2018′s election, it has used its position in opposition to springboard into the mainstream. Polls before a blackout on September 9 showed that it’s been getting nearly 25% of the vote, far ahead of its closest right-wing ally Lega.

To build a coalition with Lega, under Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and a minor coalition partner, Noi Moderati, is likely for the right-wing alliance to win power in Rome. Italy’s first-past-the-post system rewards coalitions, and the center-left Democratic Party failed to build a strong partnership despite polling 21% as a single party.

Reaching political consensus and cementing any coalition could take weeks, and a recent government may only come to power in October. Polls open at 7 a.m. local time and close at 11 p.m. The exiting poll is due as the ballot closes, but projections may not come until Monday morning.

Incumbent Mario Draghi, a much-loved technocrat forced out by political infighting in July, agrees to stay as a caretaker. The snap elections were coming six months before they were due.

Brothers of Italy have chimed with public sections concerned about immigration, the relationship with the EU, and the economy.

In terms of policy, the Brothers of Italy have often been described as “neo-fascist” or “post-fascist,” its policies echo the nationalist, nativist, and anti-immigration stance of Italy’s fascist era. Therefore, Meloni reasons to rid the party of fascist elements for her part, saying in the summer that Italy’s right-wing had “handed fascism more than the history for decades now.”

Even now, its policies are socially conservative, with the party opposing gay marriage and promoting traditional “family values,” Meloni said in 2019 that her mission was to defend “God, homeland and family.”