Far-right politician Giorgia Meloni has been elected as Italy’s leader after officially asking the President for the right to form a government.
Meloni and her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party emerged the winners of last month’s election, but short of an overall majority.
She has now formed Italy’s most right-wing government since Benito Mussolini after negotiating a coalition with allies including Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
The 45-year-old went to the Quirinal Palace Friday morning to tell President Sergio Mattarella that negotiations were over and she is ready to form an administration.
A presidential palace official announced that Meloni and her Cabinet would be sworn in on Saturday. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neo-fascist roots, was the top vote-getter in Italy’s national election last month.
Her coalition partners are Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, leader of anti-migrant League party.
Obtaining the premiership capped a remarkably quick rise for the Brothers of Italy. Meloni co-founded the party in December 2012, and it was considered a fringe movement on the right during its first years.
Meloni made no public comments before leaving the Quirinal presidential palace. Earlier in the day, she met with Mattarella along with her two main, sometimes troublesome, right-wing allies – Matteo Salvini and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Mattarella told reporters the government was formed in ‘brief time’ following the Sept. 25 election. After the last election, in 2018, it took three months for a new ruling coalition to come together.
Quickly giving the country a new government ‘was possible due to the clarity of the vote outcome and to the need to proceed swiftly also because of the domestic and international conditions that require a government in its fullness to carry out its tasks,’ Mattarella said.
Italy and much of the rest of Europe are struggling with soaring energy costs and the drama of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which could crimp gas supplies this winter and continue increasing household and business power bills.