Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor, reporting from Rome

Image source, Reuters

For Giorgia Meloni this is a sensational result, but to rule Italy she needs the support of her two allies on the right.

One of the big surprises of the night was the poor showing by Matteo Salvini's League party, which polled just 9%, according to latest results. The centre right fared worse but has been falling for several years.

For Salvini this is a dramatic turnaround from just three years ago when the League won more than 34% of the vote in European elections. In the days leading up to yesterday's election he came across as increasingly desperate, trying to stand out from his right-wing colleagues.

He accused European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of interfering in Italy's elections when she said the EU had tools to respond if Rome went nationalist. He even staged a brief protest outside the Commission offices in Rome.

Although he is expected to go back to his old job running Italy's interior ministry, it looks as if voters have moved on from Salvini and chosen Meloni instead.

Italy is a founding father of the European Union and a member of Nato, and Ms Meloni's rhetoric on the EU places her close to Hungary's nationalist leader Viktor Orban.

Her allies have both had close ties with Russia. Berlusconi, 85, claimed last week that Vladimir Putin was pushed into invading Ukraine while Mr Salvini has called into question Western sanctions on Moscow.

Meloni wants to revisit Italian reforms agreed with the EU in return for almost €200bn (£178bn) in post-Covid recovery grants and loans, arguing that the energy crisis has changed the situation.

Meloni speaks to Italians’ fearspublished at 06:32 British Summer Time 26 September 2022

06:32 BST 26 September 2022

Katya Adler
Europe Editor

Image source, Reuters

Giorgia Meloni is a master of gut politics. It’s key to her current success.

She speaks - often in shouty tones - to Italians deep-seated fears: spiralling energy costs, job insecurities, uncontrolled migration and a feeling of coming off badly in the EU, compared with giants Germany and France.

She’ll do it all differently, she promises Italians, restoring national pride.

Italy’s international allies are jumpy about her far right politics and the historical closeness to Moscow of her chosen coalition partners - the hard right populist Matteo Salvini and the business tycoon-turned politician Silvio Berlusconi.

Giorgia Meloni’s response? Trust me. “We want a strong serious and respected Italy, a loyal, reliable ally amongst Western powers when it comes to sanctions and defending the people of Ukraine,” she told a recent rally.

Here's a look at the results of the lower house so far, incomplete as they are:

Image source, Reuters

Giorgia Meloni has pledged to "govern for everyone".

"Italians have sent a clear message in favour of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy," she told reporters as she acknowledged her victory.

She is predicted to win up to 26% of the vote, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left.

And her right-wing alliance - which also includes Matteo Salvini's far-right League and former PM Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia - now looks to have control of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with a projected 42.2% of the Senate vote.

Image source, Reuters

Enrico Letta's centre-left Democratic Party has come in second, behind Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy.

But having failed to put together a coalition of parties on the centre and left, it looks set to lose out to the right-wing block.

Letta, 56, was prime minister for 10 months in 2013-14 and is no stranger to Italy's cut-throat politics.He led a coalition with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and was ultimately brought down by a rival in his own party, Matteo Renzi.

Letta was a big supporter of the broad coalition government of technocrat Mario Draghi that fell apart in the summer.

The centre-left leader's main goal looks to have been thwarted: to stop the hard right taking power in Italy.

His party backs a €9 (£8; $9) minimum wage to cover some three million workers and wants to combat anti-LGBT discrimination and legalise gay marriage.

Image source, Getty

Giorgia Meloni, 45, is poised to become Italy's first female prime minister and the nation’s first PM from the far right.

Embracing a controversial old motto,"God, fatherland and family", she campaigned against LGBT rights, wants a naval blockade of Libya and has warned repeatedly against Muslim migrants.

Unlike her right-wing allies, she has no time for Russia's Vladimir Putin and is pro-Nato and pro-Ukraine, even though many voters on the right are lukewarm on Western sanctions.

Besides tax cuts, her alliance wants to renegotiate Italy's massive EU Covid recovery plan and have Italy's president elected by popular vote.Meloni formed Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) in 2012, four years after becoming Italy's youngest-ever minister under Silvio Berlusconi in 2008.

Her party attracted little more than 4% of the vote in the last general election four years ago, and yet she is now expected to get around 25%.

Meloni was the only major party leader who refused to go into popular technocrat Mario Draghi's broad-based coalition, so she was the only big opposition leader when it collapsed in July.

Meloni grew up in the working-class neighbourhood of Garbatella, raised by her mother after her father left them.

As a teenager, she joined the youth wing of Italy's neo-fascist movement, formed after the war by supporters of late dictator Benito Mussolini.

In her 2021 book, I Am Giorgia, she stresses she is not a fascist, but identifies with Mussolini's heirs, saying:"I have taken up the baton of a 70-year-long history."

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Thanks for joining our live coverage of the election in Italy, where initial results suggest the country is on course for its most right-wing government since World War Two.

Giorgia Meloni leads the far-right Brothers of Italy party and is aiming to be Italy’s first female prime minister, allied with two other parties on the right.

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