A new poll has revealed that support for the national conservative Brothers of Italy party (FdL), which is led by Giorgia Meloni, continues to rise.
The Brothers of Italy (FdI), which at the moment is in opposition to the so-called ‘technocratic government’ of Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, now finds itself less than a percentage point behind the leftist-establishment Democratic Party (PD), and is now the third most popular party in the country.
The poll, carried out by Youtrend Supermedia and Agi, places Brothers of Italy party (FdI) at 17.9 percent, nipping at the heels of the Democratic Party (PD), which scored 18.8 percent. Senator Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populist League party continues to occupy the number one position, with 22.2 percent, Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports.
The formerly anti-establishment, left-wing populist Five Star Movement (M5S), which garnered the most votes in Italy’s 2018 national elections, saw its support fall to 16.9 percent.
Just under half of the Italian electorate (49 percent) continues to support the country’s center-right coalition parties – the League, Brothers of Italy, and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Overall, the level of support for the parties which make-up the majority of Draghi’s technocratic government fell by 2.1 percent.
The meteoric rise of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy comes just two years after the party garnered a mere 4.4 percent in Italy’s 2018 national election.
The latest figures come roughly a month after Meloni surpassed Senator Salvini as Italy’s most popular party leader. In March, a poll carried out by the Ixé Institute revealed that Meloni, who made the decision to remain in opposition to the government led by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, won 35 percent of the preferences of those surveyed. Salvini of the League party, dropped to second place with 30 percent.
Meloni’s rise in popularity is likely connected to her fiery criticism of the Draghi government. Last month, the FdI leader lambasted the prime minister for defending the migrant amnesty policy adopted by Italy’s previous leftist ruling coalition, saying that the new government has defended a “sensational failure which has served absolutely no purpose and has not solved the problem of finding labor in agriculture.”
“Brothers of Italy denounced him from the beginning and will continue to ask for this useless and ideological measure to be cancelled,” Meloni wrote in a post.
Weeks ago, Meloni urged Italy’s Health Minister Roberto Speranza to resign from his post and backed a vote of no-confidence against him, referring to him as “incompetent and inadequate” in his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meloni, who was elected president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) parliamentary grouping last September, denounced the far-left attacks against Spanish populists earlier this month, which saw extremists hurl rocks and other objects at Vox leader Santiago Abascal and his supporters. The FdI leader also called out leftist around the world for serving as the “white guards” of an anti-European system.
“The left is dramatically the same all over the world. You only have the right to speak if you think, say and support what they want,” Meloni said.
“The left, the white guard of the system, is well aware that our commitment and the battles we carry out are the greatest danger to their project. Those who defend identity, traditions, family, and homeland are an enemy to be slaughtered, at all costs.”