Far-right Meloni named Italy’s first woman prime minister

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was named Italian prime minister yesterday, becoming the first woman to head a government in Italy.Her government – Italy’s 68th since 1946 – will replace a national unity administration led by former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi.Her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party – Eurosceptic and anti-immigration – won the September 25 legislative polls but needed outside support to form a government.Meloni’s appointment is a historic event for the eurozone’s third largest economy and for Brothers of Italy, which has never been in government.Shortly after she was named, the 45-year-old from Rome named her ministers, who will be sworn in today in front of President Sergio Mattarella.Her Brothers of Italy party won 26% of the vote last month, compared to 8% and 9% respectively for her allies Forza Italia and the far-right League.Her list of 24 ministers, including six women, revealed a desire to reassure Italy’s partners.She named Giancarlo Giorgetti as economy minister, who served under the previous Draghi government.Giorgetti, a former minister of economic development, is considered one of the more moderate, pro-Europe members of Matteo Salvini’s League.Meloni also named ex-European Parliament president Antonio Tajani, of Forza Italia, as foreign minister and deputy prime minister.Salvini will serve as deputy prime minister and minister of infrastructure and transport.That appointment is likely to disappoint Salvini, who wanted Meloni to give him the role of interior minister, a position that went to a technocrat, Rome prefect Matteo Piantedosi.The consultations to cobble together a government had been overshadowed by disagreements with her two would-be coalition partners over Meloni’s ardent support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion.The leaders of Forza Italia and the League are both considered close to Moscow.Despite her Eurosceptic stance, Meloni has been firm about her support for Ukraine, in line with the rest of the European Union and the United States.“I intend to lead a government with a clear and unequivocal foreign policy line,” she has stated, adding: “Italy is fully, and with its head held high, part of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance (Nato).”“Anyone who does not agree with this cornerstone will not be able to be part of the government, even at the cost of not forming a government,” Meloni has warned.Meloni had campaigned on a platform of “God, country and family”, sparking fears of a regression on rights in the Catholic-majority country.She has distanced herself from her party’s neo-fascist past – and her own, after praising dictator Benito Mussolini as a teenager – and likes to present herself as a straight-talking but unthreatening leader.