Italy's far-right victory in the general election, or the emergence of the first female prime minister, caused a strong "shock" in Europe, some people celebrated it, and some people warned about it.
According to the Global Times, according to the results of the vote count of 99% of the domestic votes released by the Italian authorities on the morning of the 26th, the center-right coalition of the far-right party Italy Brotherhood received 44.05% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, higher than the center-left coalition of 26.05%. Among them, the support rate of Italy's fraternal party is 26.12%, the highest among all political parties, and its leader Giorgia Meloni may become Italy's first female prime minister. The possibility of Meloni coming to power has raised concerns about the reliability of the eurozone's founding member and eurozone's third-largest economy in the Western Union.
It is worth mentioning that in her winning speech, the 45-year-old Meloni deliberately downplayed her far-right color in a relatively conciliatory tone, and said that she would "unite all Italians". This is considered to be the norm for the winner in Western campaign politics, and that policy choices after coming to power are often at odds with campaign slogans. For the whole of Europe, a politician like Meloni coming to power in Italy must have a process of running into traditional politics. Run-in largely means pain, and both sides must be uncomfortable, which is also an unavoidable grind of European politics.
For Italy's fraternal party to win the election, several "eurosceptic" politicians took the lead in celebrating Italy's election results. Abbascal, the leader of Spain's far-right party VOX, tweeted that "millions of people are pinning their hopes on Italy" and that Meloni "shows the way for a proud and free Europe made up of sovereign states." Badra, a member of the European Parliament from France's far-right party National Union, claimed that Italian voters had taught the EU a "lesson in learning humility." Meanwhile, other politicians in Europe have warned of this. French Prime Minister Narendra Borne declined to comment directly on Italy's election results, but said France would "take note" that abortion and other human rights are "respected by all." Other opponents warn that Meloni's rise could become an epoch-making event in European politics. Leftists are sounding alarm bells that Méloni could push Italy into Europe's illiberal camp.
As for the reason why the center-right alliance was able to take the lead this time, Sun Yanhong, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and secretary general of the Italian Studies Branch of the Chinese European Society, analyzed that there are two: First, the three main political parties of the alliance are relatively close in concept, the leaders have close contacts in peacetime, and an agreement was reached earlier in the joint campaign. In contrast, center-left parties are less integrated; Second, Italy's fraternal party has performed well, and its support rate has climbed all the way in the past few years, successively surpassing the main parties, winning more than 26% of the vote in this general election, and will soon become the largest party in parliament.
In addition, Cui Hongjian, director of the European Institute of the China Institute of International Studies, believes that the victory of the center-right alliance has a lot to do with the people's psychology and timing. At present, Italy is facing many internal and external problems, such as energy crisis, inflation problems, deficit problems, etc. Previously, Draghi's government had sought a cross-party solution, but the political base was fragile, making it difficult to sustain multi-party rule. Against the backdrop of the crisis, conservative tendencies in Italy have intensified, and voters are more willing to choose relatively conservative right-wing parties to come to power and seek new solutions. At the same time, Cui Hongjian pointed out that if the center-right alliance comes to power smoothly, its stability is still questionable. Because the three parties still have differences over the energy crisis, tax cuts and pension reform, it remains to be seen whether they can seek consensus and achieve cooperation from their running partners to their ruling allies.