Italy’s prime minister-designate, Giorgia Meloni, has already fulfilled an electoral promise, perhaps the most important, at least for now: not to do “anything crazy”. Meloni assured Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Italy will continue the policies of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi under his leadership: continue to support Kyiv with money and weapons, continue to impose sanctions on Moscow, continue to join the EU and NATO in the Ukraine War. Meloni is sending the signal to the nation and international partners that she will present a ministerial list of “high-profile personalities” so that the new government can make a “beautiful figure” at home and abroad.
That in itself is an enormous task, for which the 45-year-old politician needs all his political skills. His coalition partners Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, alpha political animals, were very depressed by voters: together, the two men’s “historic” parties failed to garner even two-thirds of the votes that the country’s soon-to-be most powerful woman won with her “historic” party. New Party” achieved. If Meloni cannot prevail at home against the self-confessed experts of Putin Salvini and Berlusconi on the fateful question of war, his path from the periphery to the center, from the dirty corner of the right to the political center, will soon come to an end.