“You are my example, I admire and respect you”

Meloni’s triumph with Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) at the polls is historic: it will be the first far-right government since the Mussolini era. The conservative bloc, which also includes the League of Matteo Salvini and the Forza Italia party of Silvio Berlusconihas won the elections with a bracket between 41% and 45% of the votesan advantage enough to control the lower house and the senate

The granddaughter of the ‘Duce’ has shown her support for the candidate and has been grateful that Italian politics bet on her in the 2016 elections, in which she was the mayor with the most votes on the lists of the Rome city council with the ‘Fratelli’. “I hope I didn’t disappoint you”, intoned in the message. The links between the two are irrefutable. The Brothers of Italy are born from the Italian Social Movement (MSI), founded by followers of Benito Mussolini.

[“Dios, patria y familia”, el lema fascista con el que Giorgia Meloni gobernará Italia]

“Unlike those who have known you for 20 years and can tell anecdotes and dust off memories, I can’t do it. I’ve known you since 2016, when you decided to bet on me for the elections… I hope I haven’t let you down. I spent just over 600 votes to 8600… I showed that despite my last name I am a modern woman with a very open mind”, begins the message.

“I have spoken to you a couple of times but they are enough for me to understand that you are a woman (with a capital “M”) who has decided to dedicate herself completely to her greatest love: Italy. That’s why I admire you, respect you and take you as an exampleRachele’s post continues.

Romano Mussolini’s daughter decided not to run in these elections because her surname “weighs too much” and she did not want to damage the image of the Brothers of Italy. She so she confirmed it in a interview with him Huffington Post Italian in which he admitted that, despite having been the most voted councilor in Rome in 2016 -which did not mean that she was elected as mayor by the peculiar Italian voting system, in which there is the option of marking who is your favorite candidate even if it is not the head of the list of the coalition or the party for which you have voted-, he preferred to stay away from the polls so as not to “get into trouble” the party created by Meloni in 2012.

Rachele stated that she had “the bitterness of thinking” that, had she stood again as a candidate in the Italian capital, the party “would have had to defend itself and would have gotten into trouble.” “I would not deserve the candidacy and I have a surname that is certainly heavy, cumbersome,” she continued.

[Así acoge Italia la victoria de Meloni: “Es increíble que los ultraderechistas sean la referencia”]

In a Interview with Corriere della Sera in 2016, Rachele already admitted that the family name was a difficult burden to carry. “I have never used my last name, on the contrary, I have paid dearly for it. Being called Mussolini is difficult, in Rome, in Italy, in the world. It’s a demanding surname, but I carry it with a lot of pride.”

The granddaughter of the ‘Duce’ has some baggage outside the political coffers. She was shortlisted for Miss Italy in 1996, when she was only 22 years old. After her passage through the contest, she continued her academic training and graduated in languages ​​and sociology. In addition, she studied a master’s degree in communication that helped her work for a few years on Italian public television, RAI.

Uncertainty in Europe

Meloni’s victory has been a jug of cold water for Brussels, which is concerned about the coming to power of the Italian far-right candidate. The historic triumph of the Brothers of Italy is more remarkable if one takes into account that in 2018 they obtained just 4% of the votes.

Not in vain, nor the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyennor the President of the Council, Charles Michael, have congratulated the Italian after the results. “There are too many Italians who still choose not to trust the institutions,” Meloni said this Sunday after 02:30 in the morning before the media.

Despite the alarming number of abstentions, one in four voters in the country has chosen the ‘Fratelli’. The party with neo-fascist roots of Meloni has been the most voted, with 25.3% of the votes.

It is followed by the Democratic Party (19.5%), the Five Star Movement (16%), the League (8.5%), Forza Italia (7.9%), Action-Italia Viva (7.5%), Green-Left Alliance (3.6%), +Europe (3%), Italexit (2%), Us the Moderates (1%) and Civic Commitment (0.7%).

[La victoria de Giorgia Meloni refuerza en la UE a la derecha dura de Polonia y Hungría]