Italy’s New Prime Minister

Italy has a newly elected Prime Minister who won the election on Sunday, September 25. Giorgia Meloni is part of the conservative leaning Brother’s of Italy party who currently hold a majority in both houses of Italy’s parliament. Meloni is suspected to take office sometime in October.

The election took place on the 25 of September and is what is called a snap election, designed to quickly elect someone in since former Prime Minister Mario Draghi put in his resignation in July.

The Prime Minister, or the President of the council, is in charge of the Council of Ministers. The Ministers execute laws and present bills to parliament, who sign bills into law.

The President of Italy names the Prime Minister after a candidate wins the popular vote. That being said, the president actually holds very little power. This is due to the fact that in Italy, people do not vote for the Prime Minister. They vote for a party and the party with the most seats in both houses picks the Prime Minister. The president is more or less the guy who carries out the coronation for a monarch of England

“The presidential role is hugely ceremonial,” World history teacher Mr. Hayfield said.

The Italian government is a republic split into three powers: the prime minister takes the executive powers and is head of state. However, Italian democracy is an unstable one as Parliament holds a confidence vote against the Prime minister if the prime minister loses the vote they can be expelled. And Italy changes governments about every 13 months due to this vote.

“Nothing is ever as stable as you think it is,” World History teacher Mr.Hayfield said.

The win has many people worried world wide because Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy, started as a post World War Ⅱ party called the Italian social movement that had close ties with the National Facisim movement and Benito Mussolini. Some argue the Brothers of Italy and the National Facism movement are the same party.

After World War Ⅱ, it was illegal to be a facist. In Germany, there was a deNazification in which Germany had to meet certain criteria from the U.S, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union (modern day Russia).

“There was no deNazification in Italy so the facist movement never truly died out in Italy,” World History teacher Mr. Hayfield said.

This connection has made many wonder about Giorgia Meloni’s motives, and by extension, her party’s motives.

While Meloni is not technically prime minister yet, there is already fear that she could cause the return of facism as a trend in world governments. Whatever her political ideology may be, she has already offered full support to Ukraine as they face Putin’s onslaught.

“Good luck Italy,” sophomore Ayden Kreinbrink said.