Will Meloni be able to govern Italy?

Mario Draghi’s national unity government lost badly in yesterday’s Italian election – worse even than the polls predicted. Fratelli d’Italia, the main opposition party, was the big winner. Five Star, which pulled the plug on Draghi’s government, also gained. What we did not see is a big shift between left and right. The right coalition of Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, and Forza Italia, got 44 per cent. The really big movements occurred within the coalition. Giorgia Meloni’s FdI ended up with 26 per cent – way ahead of the published polls. Lega got only 9 per cent. The coalition is on course to secure a majority in both houses of parliament, though not the two-thirds majority needed to amend the Italian constitution. Meloni will almost surely be the next prime minister.

For Matteo Salvini, 9 per cent in the vote is a personal defeat. This is a serious underperformance compared to Lega’s result in 2018, not to mention the commanding heights they reached in the polls – as high as 37 per cent – the year after.