Giorgia Meloni: Leader of Italy’s right-wing government, led by Brothers of Italy

"I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian”. Giorgia Meloni, president of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, has been the most cited, despised and acclaimed Italian politician of the past several months.

Born in 1977, besides being a politician, Meloni is also a professional journalist and author of her autobiography ‘Io sono Giorgia’. At the age of twenty, she approached Italian politics, becoming the head of the student movement at the Alleanza Nazionale party. Within two years she became the provincial councillor of Rome. In 2006 she became deputy of the Minister of Youth which then merged into Young Italy joining the party of the People of Freedom. After years of experience at the People of Freedom, Meloni took advantage of a party void, caused by the National Alliance’s fall, founding in 2012, together with Ignazio La Russa and Guido Crosetto, the party of Brothers of Italy.

Throughout her electorate campaign, Meloni has demonstrated to be prepared for the role of PM, with her combination of intelligence, clarity, balance, tenacity and determination. Nonetheless, opposers are concerned about her political program to make Italy an upright country. Giorgia Meloni is described by many as the country’s most far-right leader since Benito Mussolini. Let’s get into detail on what Giorgia Meloni plans to do with her power:

“Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!” Giorgia Meloni’s programmatic document regarding rights has generated disagreements and misunderstandings within the nation. For starters, there have been misinterpretations of Law 194 of 1978 on voluntary termination of pregnancy. Left-wing supporters have spread the word that Giorgia Meloni plans to abolish this law. However, Meloni has stated that she plans on doing no such thing, on the contrary, she specifically said the law wouldn’t be modified, instead, there will be an addition to it, and that is prevention. This means that if a woman wants to have an abortion she is free to do so, nonetheless, if the reason she wants to have an abortion is that she doesn’t think there is any other solution, for example for financial reasons, in that case, the state will economically support that woman and her child.

Laws concerning civil unions were also discussed in Italy as left-wing supporters claimed Meloni was planning on abolishing these. Civil unions have been legal in Italy since 2016. Again, Meloni never said she plans on abolishing civil unions. Therefore, same-sex marriage is still allowed in Italy, even under a right-wing government. Moreover, another issue in which there is just as much disinformation is, namely, adoption by same-sex couples. Meloni doesn’t want to remove or modify this right, as it is already nonexistent in Italy. “From 5 June 2016 same-sex couples can access civil unions, established with Law no. 76 of 20 May 2016, which guarantees most of the rights of marriage, with the exception of adoptions.” Once more, in the country, same-sex couples cannot adopt a child. What is permitted is for a partner to adopt a child in another country and then legalise the fact that the child is theirs (by the process of adoption in the Court of Cassation). Then with the ‘step-child adoption,’ the other partner can legally become the child’s other parent. Right-wing supporters argued that this is a right that if the left-wing party wanted to provide in the past 11 years of government, it would have done so already.

“STOP illegal immigration. We are ready to defend Italy’s borders!” For years, Giorgia Meloni has blamed the country’s migration policies for allowing Italy to become, as she commented, a ‘refugee camp of Europe’. Giorgia Meloni, now Italy’s PM, thus launched the idea of a naval blockade as a way of preventing illegal immigration and ending illegal departures to Italy, followed by the tragedy of deaths at sea. Left-wing politicians, however, say the proposal is tyrannical. "Those who describe desperate migrants crossing the Mediterranean in search of democracy, peace, and freedom as dangerous enemies to be defended against using blockades and pushbacks, show that they do not know what democracy, peace, and freedom are," Centro Astalli, the Italian site of the Jesuit Refugee Service, tweeted. Meloni, nonetheless, has stated it is a European mission, in agreement with the states of north Africa, to stop human trafficking, and to establish in African territory, spaces managed together with the EU to screen asylum seekers and distinguish those who have the right to international protection from those who don’t have the same right.

Giorgia Meloni appears to be willing to be Italy’s first female PM, but will she genuinely govern for everyone without betraying those who have placed their trust in her?