A century ago, in 1922, Benito Mussolini's Black Shirts marched on Rome, the start of 20 years of Fascist rule. Now, Italy could for the first time elect a prime minister whose party is rooted in neo-Fascism.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, is widely expected to win the national elections on Sunday, and then form a coalition government including Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and Matteo Salvini's League party.
The 45-year-old would be the first female leader in Italy, a country far behind its European allies in gender parity, and the first far-right politician to become head of government in a major eurozone economy.
It would be an astonishing success for a politician long seen on the fringe and for a party that won just 4.3% of the vote at the last election in 2018.
Now, Brothers of Italy, which Ms Meloni founded 10 years ago, could win around 25% and become the country's largest party.
But the victory of a nationalist and eurosceptic in Italy would also raise fears in Europe, already grappling with the government of Viktor Orban's Fidesz in Hungary and the rise of Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National in France, Vox in Spain, and Chega in Portugal.
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A Roman native, Ms Meloni has a no-nonsense attitude, a thick working-class accent and an ability to rouse crowds that make her stand out among the white middle-aged men who dominate Italian politics and boardrooms.
Her values of God, homeland and (traditional) family echo those promoted during the Fascist regime. Her party is named after the opening line of the national anthem, a warcry about fighting to the death for freedom.
Like other populists, she speaks out against "global elites" and fights what she calls the "groupthink" of political correctness and gender ideology.
But she has long been a supporter of NATO, and has spoken out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while many others on the far-right support Vladimir Putin.
Fascist roots
Ms Meloni, who as a young woman praised Mussolini, now repudiates the Fascist dictator and his anti-Semitic laws.
She places her party, which has roots in the Italian Social Movement (MSI) created by Mussolini supporters in 1946, firmly in the mainstream, alongside the Conservative Party here or the Republican Party in the US.
Indeed she often cites Roger Scruton, the philosopher and public intellectual who inspired Margaret Thatcher.
And she told Sky News' Europe Correspondent Adam Parsons that "there is nobody all over the world who needs to be afraid of us."
In a video posted this summer on Facebook - where she speaks English and other foreign languages for the consumption of the international media - she seeks to reassure European capitals that she poses no threat to democracy.
"The Italian right has handed Fascism over to history for decades now," she says.
Still, Brothers of Italy retains the flag-flame logo associated with Fascists (it is reputed to mean that Fascism burns on), and its rank-and-file includes Mussolini sympathisers who are sometimes caught giving the stiff-arm salute, while some local officials have Mussolini memorabilia in their offices.
'I'm Giorgia'
Ms Meloni first captured widespread attention in 2019, when she gave a rousing speech that would become the most famous of her career.
Speaking to supporters in Rome piazza, she issued a rallying cry against global leftist forces that, she claimed, see family and national identity as enemies, and that want us to be "just codes".
"But we aren't just codes. We are people. And we'll defend our identity," she said.
Then, in what has become a signature line, she added: "I'm Giorgia, I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm Christian! You won't take that away from me!"
This last flurry became a meme, remixed as a hit dance track that further spread her notoriety, and her fame. "I am Giorgia" is also the title of her autobiography.
She is against adoption by same-sex couples. When Peppa Pig featured a couple consisting of two mothers, her party rushed to say that showing the episode in Italy would be unacceptable.
And though she insists she won't abolish Italy's abortion law, some fear she might try to restrict its application.
Naval blockade
A strong anti-immigrant stance is a cornerstone of Ms Meloni's manifesto, even as many economists note that, with Italy's low birth rate, the country's economy needs migrants.
She has called for a naval blockade of Africa's Mediterranean coast to stop migrants from reaching Italy.
In the past she alluded to the "Great Replacement" theory, a conspiracy suggesting that global elites want to substitute Europeans with immigrants.
In another notable speech, at a rally of the Spanish rightist party Vox last June, she said: "Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby.
"Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology. Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death."
"No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders. No to mass immigration, yes to work for our people. No to major international finance!"
In one of the most controversial moments of the electoral campaign, she retweeted the blurred video of a Ukrainian woman allegedly being raped by an asylum seeker in an Italian city, saying she could not remain silent in the face of "this atrocious episode of sexual violence". (The video was eventually removed by Twitter for violating its rules.)
'Moment of truth'
"For somebody who prides herself of being true to herself, of always saying what she really thinks, it's almost as if she's had a split personality during the electoral campaign", says Giada Zampano, a journalist and expert on the right-wing movement in Italy who has followed Ms Meloni's rise.
"On the one hand, we see the orator, the speaker who rouses the crowd, who seeks to appeal to the 10% Fascist core of her electorate.
"On the other we see the reassuring face who seeks to assuage the fears of Europe."
Zampano, who expects a decisive victory by Ms Meloni, adds: "Once she's in power, she will have to show her true colours.
"She will have to make choices when it comes to Italy's relationship with Europe, fiscal policy, nationalism, the European recovery funds. These decisions will be far more significant than labels about Fascism, post-Fascism or neo-Fascism.
"That will be the moment of truth."
Her life
Ms Meloni was raised by her mother in a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Rome.
Her father left when she was one to live in the Canary Islands, with Ms Meloni and her sister visiting him once or twice a year. When she was 11, Ms Meloni stopped seeing him altogether.
As a child, she was called "fatty", something she said made her stronger.
She studied languages in high school and never went to university, instead taking up all manner of temporary jobs: she worked as a babysitter, as a stallholder at a flea market, as a bartender in a disco.
As for her political passion, it was awakened, she says, after the Mafia murdered a prosecutor in the early 1990s.
Still a teenager, she walked into the local branch of a previous iteration of the heirs to the Fascists, a party that had refashioned itself as mainstream conservative under the name of National Alliance.
By 29 she was an MP, at 31 she became the youngest minister in post-war Italy, running the youth portfolio in Mr Berlusconi's coalition government in 2008.
More recently, she was among the few who didn't participate in the unity coalition headed by Mario Draghi, the prime minister she might succeed.
She has a daughter with a TV journalist but, despite her defence of the traditional family, is not married.
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2022-09-24 03:15:54Z
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