Just call her Giorgia: Italian PM Meloni’s transformation from the margins to power broker
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s final rally last week ahead of the European elections was déjà vu through a softened lens.
When campaigning for national Italian elections in late 2022, Meloni stood in the same historic Piazza del Popolo in Rome. There, as leader of Brothers of Italy, a once-outlier party with neo-Fascist roots, she railed against the left, migration and a European Union she said was intent on destroying Europe’s Christian identity. Shortly after, she became Italy’s first female prime minister.
A year and a half later, Meloni’s look is more polished, her tone more measured, her approach more personal: she’s encouraging supporters to think of her simply as “Giorgia” and to write her first name only on the ballot.
And, as Italians join citizens from 26 other countries to elect a new EU parliament, Meloni is displaying the same political acumen and patience that saw her rise from the margins to centre stage in Italy, and transformed her into a power broker in the EU.
“She could be pivotal,” said Lorenzo De Sio, a professor of politics at Luiss University in Rome, “instrumental in [forming] the majority in the EU parliament and reinforcing the fact that she’s not so much an outlier anymore.”
From Thursday to Sunday, some 373 million eligible Europeans are voting in 27 EU bloc countries, electing the next European parliament, with 720 seats allotted proportionately to member countries’ population. It’s one of the biggest democratic elections in the world, second only to India, with support for Ukraine to fend off Russian aggression and climate change policy hanging in the balance.
Europe is shifting to the right, with polls showing populist and hard-right leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, France’s National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders’s Dutch Freedom party and the Freedom Party of Austria expected to do well.
With their disdain for EU rules and climate change measures, they align closely with Meloni’s outlook — except on one key issue: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While many of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party members are pro-Russia, Meloni herself has proven to be a stalwart supporter of Ukraine.
Teaming up with Meloni?
Consequently, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission who has made it clear she will not work with Orban and the likes, says she would team up with Meloni — putting the Italian leader in position to become queenmaker.
“She is clearly pro-European, against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, she’s been very clear on that one, and pro-rule of law,” von der Leyen said last month during an election debate. “If this holds … then we offer to work together.”
Already the two have worked together to seal controversial deals between the EU and North African countries to block migrant departures.
If Meloni were to back von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s party (EPP), the choice would be one to calm markets and protect Italy’s more than $300 billion Cdn in EU pandemic recovery funds, the lion’s share of EU help.
Instead, going with the hard-right would be a decision to keep beating the drum of Europe’s Christian identity, “traditional” families and national sovereignty over EU regulations.
While Meloni has hinted she may back von der Leyen, she’s also deftly straddled the two sides: she still has Orban’s ear, but she has also distanced herself from her party’s neo-Fascist roots.
‘Doing exactly what she promised’
While her support for Ukraine and willingness to work with the EU give her sway, observers say it also gives her a free pass to implement a political agenda at home counter to European values.
“While she performed a U-turn in foreign policy, in domestic politics, she’s doing exactly what she promised,” said Cecilia Emma Sottilotta, a professor in Italian politics at the University of Perugia for Foreigners.
Meloni’s right-wing coalition government has passed laws that allow abortion opponents into health centres that offer the medical procedure and that curb 2SLGBTQ+ rights; it’s limited the independence of prosecutors and appointed loyalists to top jobs at the state broadcasters, prompting a strike from journalists who accuse her of turning the outlet into a government mouthpiece.
“She’s Berlusconi 2.0,” said Di Sio, of the late controversial former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who as a media mogul long controlled Italy’s private and public broadcasters, “except she has the advantage of playing better on the international scene. In a way, she’s buying external support … and more tolerance of what happens in Italy.”
That will only carry her so far at home, though, said Di Sio.
Meloni has made no inroads in reversing Italy’s birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, or in shrinking its massive public debt, expected to overtake Greece by 2028 as the EU country with the biggest debt, at 143.7 per cent of the GDP.
Testing the reactions of Italians
Despite promises to reduce poverty and put an end to the arrival of migrants by sea, with highly contested plans to outsource camps to Albania, poverty rates remain steady, with migrants crossing down the first months of 2024 after a sharp, prolonged rise in 2023.
In Italy, the result of the EU elections is a way politicians gauge how Italians are reacting to their mandate, said Sottilotta.
“When it comes to EU elections, Italian politicians see them as an opportunity for visibility and at the end of the day it’s an unofficial opinion poll on how a government is doing,” she said.
Most recent polls show just above a quarter of Italians support Meloni, the same percentage her party received in 2022 in national elections, with the lowest voter turnout on record.
A centre-left that has failed to appeal to voters beyond its historic core has helped keep Meloni afloat. So, too, say observers, has Meloni’s shape-shifting from a bombastic extremist to someone who presents herself as a friend, as simply “Giorgia,” as many of her supporters call her.
“In EU elections, Italian party leaders don’t put their names on ballots to try to reach as many voters as possible, they do it to mobilize party members to vote,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco of YouTrend polling company.
“And it’s a strategy that’s proven more effective with right-wing parties like Brothers of Italy than the centre-left.”
A strategy, that if effective, could put Meloni in the driver’s seat in an EU she once urged to bring down.
Published at Fri, 07 Jun 2024 18:09:18 +0000
Who will Donald Trump choose as his vice-presidential running mate?
With the Republican convention to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate around the corner, Donald Trump will be making his vice-presidential running mate selection soon enough.
Trump, the 2016 outsider candidate who upended the party, chose Mike Pence then. That political alliance ended when Pence refused to heed Trump’s pleas to not officially certify Joe Biden’s 2020 win, despite being threatened by some Trump supporters during the Capitol insurrection.
WATCH l Trump raises spectre of violence if jailed:
Former U.S. president Donald Trump told Fox News he would be ‘OK’ with house arrest or jail time following his conviction, but he doesn’t think the public ‘would stand for it.’ Trump’s opponents considered the comments as being able to incite violence.
Political scientists have long said that vice-presidential choices have rarely had an impact on voting behaviour.
But the choices are always debated, and ahead of the July 15 convention in Milwaukee, Reuters has heard several names repeated based on conversations with nine people who have talked with Trump or his team in recent weeks, including donors, lobbyists and campaign operatives.
Here’s a closer look at some potential VP candidates:
Doug Burgum
Burgum, 67, was little known outside his native North Dakota when he launched a quixotic campaign for president last year. The governor of the 47th most populous state in the U.S. since 2016, he gained attention for offering cash in exchange for donations in a brief campaign that involved spending at least $12 million US of his own money.
There a number of factors that could endear him to the nominee: he endorsed Trump right away after dropping out of the presidential campaign, he was among a small number of Republicans to travel to New York and protest Trump’s trial outside the courthouse, and he is a real estate investor and billionaire who sold a software company to Microsoft in 2001.
Trivia: There has never been a VP from the Dakotas.
Tom Cotton
Cotton, 47, has been in the Senate since 2015, and prior to that put two years in as a House member. He serves on the judiciary, intelligence and armed services committees. Perhaps the candidate would like another face on those committees, as Cotton was not averse to occasionally voting against the first Trump administration.
Cotton received a law degree from Harvard and then enlisted in the U.S. army, seeing active combat duty but later encountering criticism for allegations he mischaracterized aspects of his deployment. His op-ed imploring the Trump administration to send in troops to quell 2020 protests over police brutality famously caused a rupture within the New York Times.
More recently, Cotton gave a stronger statement in supporting the results of the upcoming election compared to some other potential VP candidates.
Trivia: Cotton is six-foot-five. Would Trump pick a VP taller than he is?
Marco Rubio
Rubio, 53, ran for president in 2016 and found himself on the end of several Trump insults, but any hard feelings have long since been smoothed over. Rubio was a strong backer when Trump was president, voting against his two impeachments, and he compared Trump’s recent conviction to show trials in authoritarian countries. A Florida senator since 2010, he probably has the widest range of committee experience of any potential picks.
While going from being one of the most high-profile senators to a role that’s often overshadowed might seem like a step back, Rubio is no doubt mindful of history — Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush raised their profiles vice-presidents and landed in the Oval Office after previous failed presidential bids.
Trump has ignored history, tradition and, his critics say, the constitution before. He would probably be doing so again by picking Rubio, as the 12th Amendment seems to indicate that a president and vice-president can’t reside in the same state.
Trivia: Rubio would be the first Cuban American and Hispanic vice-president.
Tim Scott
Scott, 58, could be the first Black man to serve as vice-president. That’s more than just trivia, as Scott has been hailed within the party for his ability to raise money and provide outreach to minority voters.
He ran for president this cycle but didn’t make it to the first contest in Iowa. He criticized Trump on the campaign trail for not supporting a federal abortion ban like he has. That’s unlikely to bother the base, as many Republican-led states have banned the procedure in the aftermath of the momentous 2022 Dobbs court ruling, but it could upset undecided women voters.
As well, Scott voted alongside previous Trump administration positions more so than some other names on this list, according to an analysis.
He’s been a longtime politician — a senator for over 10 years, a House member for two before that and a municipal politician in the more distant past.
Trivia: He’s getting married in the summer, meaning he wouldn’t be the first unwed vice-president since Charles Curtis (1929-1933).
Elise Stefanik
Stefanik, 39, is arguably the person whose moved the furthest from Trump criticism and skepticism eight years ago to staunch supporter now, echoing his controversial language that many 2021 Capitol riot criminal defendants are “political prisoners.”
Stefanik has White House experience, serving in George W. Bush’s administration as a junior staffer and has risen to become the fourth-ranking House Republican after being first elected to the chamber in 2014.
Stefanik has made a name for herself in recent months by forceful questioning of university presidents in their efforts to deal with antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests that have sprung up since the Oct. 7 attack in Israel by Hamas. She then celebrated when two of those campus leaders resigned after enduring a firestorm of criticism for their answers to Stefanik and her Republican colleagues.
Trivia: She would be the first woman to serve as VP for the Republicans. She’d be the youngest VP in modern times, and second only to 36-year-old John Breckinridge in the 1820s.
J.D. Vance
Vance, 39, ticks a lot of boxes on paper for an ideal political candidate: military experience, a Yale law degree, tech experience in Silicon Valley and his name on a book that crossed over into the mainstream: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, later made into a movie.
Vance — who spoke to CBC in 2016 about his rural American upbringing — in the past criticized Trump for often offering easy, impractical answers to voters like his onetime neighbours, but he has been a full-throated supporter of the former president since launching his successful 2022 Senate bid.
Choosing Vance would lead to an expensive and potentially risky contest in what’s expected to be a razor-close 2024 U.S. Senate year. Ohio has leaned conservative in recent years, but is not as solidly Republican as the states of Cotton, Rubio and Scott.
Trivia: Vance has been bearded in recent years and that has been out of vogue for the top ticket since the early 1900s. Trump famously loathed former White House adviser John Bolton’s mustache.
Published at Fri, 07 Jun 2024 16:43:37 +0000
