45-year-old Italian neoconservative could become country’s female prime minister, say polls

The fiery leader of the right-wing populist Brothers of Italy party is in the lead to become the nation’s next prime minister after current PM Mario Draghi submitted his resignation.

Giorgia Meloni, 45, is leading the polls ahead of a likely snap election, reports the Daily Mail. The country’s politics were thrown into turmoil after the 5 Star Movement, a populist member of the ruling coalition, withheld support for a government-sponsored bill to combat soaring energy prices.

“With Draghi's resignation, this legislature is over for the Brothers of Italy,” Meloni said after Draghi offered to resign over his failure to pass the bill.

“We'll fight until the Italian people are given back a right that citizens of every other democracy have: the freedom to choose their own representatives.”

Her party, the Brothers of Italy, is a national-conservative party with neofascist roots that has surged in popularity in recent years. Barely hitting 4% of the vote in 2018, it now has an estimated 22%– around the same as the center-left Democratic Party.

Her anti-immigration stance has caught on as the European Union’s third-largest economy faces rising inflation and energy prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Proposals included a blockade of the North African coast to keep migrants away from Italy and financial incentives for couples to have more children to make the country less dependent on migrant labor, reports the Mail.

Meloni was the youngest cabinet minister in Italian history under Silvio Berlusconi, the controversial leader of the center-right Forza Italy party.

However, Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, leader of the centre-right populist party The League, issued a joint statement Friday backing Draghi, whose resignation Wednesday was rejected President Sergio Mattarella.