The candidates of the conservative bloc parties close Sunday’s election campaign with a mass rally in Rome
Italians can get out of parliamentary elections for the next five years with a mother, father and grandfather to take care of them. Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, leaders of the three conservative parties who, according to all polls, will win big in the poll’s imminent nomination, rounded out the campaign with a massive rally held this Thursday in Rome in which they appealed to the feelings of the Italians: they imagined themselves as the only alternative to solving their problems and returning to them the pride of a country that had resigned itself to living in perpetual decay for decades. They also promised a unified government during the five-year legislature.
In a Piazza del Popolo taken over by the supporters of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI, Brothers of Italy), Meloni’s party, which leads the polls, and in which the flags of the League and Forza Italia were barely visible, the former took the floor was the experienced leader of this latter political force. During one of his few public campaign outings, preferring to focus on TikTok videos shot from his office, Berlusconi grabbed the microphone to introduce himself to voters as the voice of the experience, as the grandfather to to trust. It wasn’t a bad strategy: On the brink of turning 86, the four-time former prime minister claimed his background in government and, in particular, the “wonderful foreign policy” his cabinets were developing.
It was an implicit way of telling Italians that they can remain calm with Forza Italia in the next Executive and that the country’s position in the European Union and NATO is not in jeopardy. This is not an insignificant concern given Meloni’s sympathy for Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, a champion of Euroscepticism. Salvini has also boasted for years about his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose party, United Russia, was twinned with the League. “We are the Italy of good people, families and companies. We want to build an Italy with more well-being, more security and more freedom,” said the tycoon before launching the “Giorgia” and “Matteo” cheers.
The latter, who is content to be the next interior minister because Meloni has eaten the field among conservative voters, reiterated time and again that his goal is “to protect Italy and Italians”. Like the father who lectures his teenage son when he goes out at night, Salvini listed the dangers facing the country and offered solutions for everything. He started the work, assuring that with the right in power he would cut electricity and gas bills, and even promised to hold a referendum if the European Union doesn’t renege on its plan to ban the sale of combustion cars from 2035. , a measure that threatens the Italian car giant Fiat. “We will not allow Europe to think about kicking workers out of factories to create jobs in China,” Salvini shouted.
Presenting himself as the “protector of the environment, which is not the patrimony of the left,” the bells of one of the churches in Piazza del Popolo rang, to which he quickly responded to defend Italy’s Christian identity against the perceived threat posed by , in his opinion, presupposes the arrival of immigrants of other religions. “Long live the sound of bells! Not for those who want us to change the way we pray. Whoever comes to our country should say ‘thank you’, ‘please’ and respect what we are. Let’s not be a foolish people” , said the League candidate, whose campaign slogan carries strong religious weight: “I believe.”
The last to appear on stage was Meloni, who was introduced by a well-known actor as a “mother” and a “woman” who breaks glass ceilings in Italian and European politics. The FdI candidate, who had said on another occasion that she intended to rule “as a child is raised”, on this occasion forgot the maternal appeals by appealing to fear. Responding to the fear that some of the electorate would feel about the possible victory of a party of post-fascist origin, Meloni listed all those who she believes should be shaking because it is about ending their privileges. He spoke, of course, of the left, of the foreigners who are in “unfair competition” with the “Made in Italy” and of the “slaveholders of the third millennium” who transport migrants and refugees across the Sicilian Channel to Italy.
He also responded to those betting on a short experience of the conservative alliance in power, a common practice in a country where executives last a little over 13 months on average. “We will build a solid and united government that will last five years,” he said, repeating an idea Salvini had commented on earlier, who promised to “govern well and together for five years.”
Source: La Verdad
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