Italy's far-right Meloni launches campaign riding high in the polls

Brothers of Italy has seen its support increase sixfold over the past five years, and Meloni has supplanted League leader and ex-interior minister Matteo Salvini as the standard-bearer of the Italian hard right.

Meloni’s party has benefitted from being the sole opposition to technocratic PM Mario Draghi’s grand coalition since February 2021.

She launched her campaign on safe ground on Tuesday, in the Marche region, part of Italy’s central belt that used to vote for the centre-left but has gone over to the far right.

One new Brothers of Italy member, Vincenzo Mancini, a town councillor in the Marche’s Ascoli Piceno, said Meloni would bring stability to Italy’s famously turbulent politics: “In Italy we have seen so many governments come and go,” he said. “I think that this time could perhaps be different. We need to try something new.”

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