Giorgia Meloni Defies the Left as Her Popularity Endures

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Giorgia Meloni Defies the Left as Her Popularity Endures

 

Despite recent electoral wins by the Left in a few Italian cities, the idea that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is losing her grip on power is not supported by the broader political landscape. Her critics, bolstered by sympathetic media narratives, have been quick to trumpet victories in Genoa and Ravenna as a sign that the tide is turning. But the facts tell a different story.

 

Earlier this month, local elections were held in 126 councils, including a number of major cities. In Genoa, the Left triumphed with a candidate who also happened to be a former Olympic hammer thrower—a visual gift for headline writers eager to paint a narrative of Meloni under siege. Yet such interpretations are more wishful than realistic.

 

Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, continues to dominate national opinion polls, performing even better now than it did in September 2022, when it led a right-wing coalition to a sweeping victory in the general election. That coalition now governs Italy, and it does so with significant public backing. Such midterm popularity is rare in European politics, especially in a country like Italy that has seen 68 different governments since the end of fascism in 1945.

 

 

Nevertheless, opposition leader Elly Schlein of the Democratic Party has seized the moment, declaring, “If I were Giorgia Meloni I’d be beginning to worry, [this] is the symptom that something in her rapport with the country is broken.” Schlein added, “What is now clear is that the centre-Right crows about the polls but we win elections.”

 

To Schlein’s credit, she at least described Meloni as “centre-Right,” a departure from much of the international media which still often labels her “far-Right.” This despite the fact that Meloni’s policies—such as cracking down on illegal immigration—are now being emulated even by politicians on the Left. UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, for example, has praised Meloni’s offshore asylum processing model and expressed interest in replicating it in Britain. “Remarkable progress,” he called it. It would be a stretch to call him “far-Right” for that.

 

On the international stage, Meloni has emerged as a pragmatic and influential figure. Her straightforward realism, combined with a personable demeanor and youthful energy, has positioned her as a significant player in global affairs.

 

Claims that recent local victories signal her downfall seem even more tenuous when considering the political leanings of the cities in question. Genoa and Ravenna have long been strongholds of the Italian Left. Genoa, in particular, has been one of the most reliably Left-wing cities in the country for decades. Italy, after all, once hosted the largest communist party outside the Soviet Bloc. The Democratic Party, now led by Schlein, is a direct ideological descendant of that tradition.

 

Moreover, the Democratic Party did not win these cities alone. Its victories came in alliance with the populist Five Star Movement, a party with which it has a rocky, on-again, off-again relationship. They once governed together nationally for just 18 months before the coalition fell apart. Even if they joined forces again for the next general election in 2027, their combined support—currently 22 percent for the Democrats and 12 percent for Five Star—would fall far short of what’s needed to form a government.

 

By contrast, Meloni’s coalition remains strong. Brothers of Italy polls at 30 percent, while her partners, Forza Italia and the League, are both sitting at 9 percent. The numbers make clear that, if an election were held today, the Right would win comfortably.

 

Schlein’s only viable path to power lies in the so-called campo largo (broad field), a coalition of the Democratic Party, Five Star, and various small Left-wing factions. This is the formula that succeeded in Genoa. But the national viability of such an alliance is doubtful, especially given Schlein’s lack of compelling leadership and policy ideas.

 

As Aldo Cazzullo, a journalist not aligned with the Right, wrote in Corriere della Sera, her party is “a little 5 percent party of the extreme Left” without concrete proposals. “If there were a general election now, the Right would win convincingly,” he concluded.

For all the media buzz about symbolic city-level wins, Meloni remains firmly in command—much to the ongoing frustration of her critics.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Telegraph  2025-05-31

 

 

[mfd101]

Meloni is fun to watch at assorted EU meetings & with Trump. Lots of eye-rolling at others' idiocy or indecision.  No-nonsense approach.

 

Refreshing. Particularly for staid & stumbling ol' Italy, now emerging on the world stage again for the first time in many many moons.

[mfd101]

And what a lovely photo the first one above is: You sure? You really believe that? You bull<deleted>ting me?