Italy voters shift sharply, reward Meloni’s far-right party

ROME — Italian voters shifted sharply, rewarding a party with neo-fascist roots and bolstering prospects the country could have its first far-right-led government since World War II, partial results Monday from the election for Parliament indicated.

In a victory speech, far-right Italian leader Giorgia Meloni struck a moderate tone after preliminary results in Sunday’s national election showed her Brothers of Italy party leading contenders.

“If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone, we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people (of this country),” Meloni said at her party’s Rome headquarters.

“Italy chose us,” she said. “We will not betray (the country) as we never have.”

As polls in the run up to Sunday’s vote showed her as the likely winner, Meloni has moderated her far-right message in an apparent attempt to reassure the European Union and other international partners.

“This is the time for being responsible,” Meloni said, appearing live on television and describing the situation for Italy and the European Union is “particularly complex.”

The formation of a ruling coalition with the help of right-wing allies of her Brothers of Italy party could take weeks. If Meloni, 45, succeeds, she would be the first woman to hold the country’s premiership. A mandate to try to form a government must be given by Italy’s president.

She thanked her main campaign allies and the likely partners essential to her forming a government: anti-migrant League leader Matteo Salvini and conservative former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. Apparently headed for a drubbing in the voting was the euro-skeptic Salvini, who had hoped to become premier. Projections indicated Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party would win some 25.7% of the vote.

That compared to some 19.3% by the closest challenger, the center-left Democratic Party of former Premier Enrico Letta. Salvini’s League was projected to win 8.6% of the ballots.