Italy: PM Meloni established as kingmaker as party secures win in elections
Giorgia Meloni's far-right Fratelli d'Italia, or Brothers of Italy, secures victory in Italy after receiving over 28% of the votes, according to an exit poll released by the Italian RAI.
The victory would give her a domestic boost while positioning her as one of the most powerful figures in the European Union.
The centre-left opposition PD earned 23% of votes, followed by the populist Five Star Movement, which received 10% of support, a seven-point decrease from the 2019 election.
Meloni's junior partners, Forza Italia and the Lega party led by Eurosceptic politician Matteo Salvini, had a mixed showing.
The far-right Lega received about 8% of the votes, a sharp drop from its 2019 result when it won 34.3% for a total of 29 seats.
The overwhelming support for Brothers of Italy compared to Forza Italia and Lega "confirms the trend that the Italian centre-right is very sensitive to internal leadership changes within the coalition," Francesco Sismondini, election polls analyst, told Euronews.
Andrea Renda, director of research at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told Euronews that tensions could arise in the governing coalition amid the disparity in party results. "The other parties will realise they are losing consensus the more they stay in power with Fratelli d'Italia," Renda said.
Meloni has been named the kingmaker of the elections as both European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen of the centre-right European People's Party and France's far-right Marine Le Pen courted her for support.
Le Pen sought Meloni's backing to unite the EU's far-right parties. In Parliament, they are currently split between Identity and Democracy (ID), which Le Pen's National Rally is part of, and Meloni's European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
Von der Leyen needed Meloni's backing as she sought to secure her second term as president of the European Commission. Throughout the campaign, the Commission chief reiterated her trust in Meloni as a credible partner in Brussels.
Meloni proved her pro-EU and pro-Ukraine stances, moving away from her Eurosceptic views in her initial days in office.
