Italians were braced for seismic change on Saturday, on the eve of an election forecasted to hand Italy the most rightwing government since the second world war.
Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, is widely expected to become the country’s first female prime minister.
“The country is eager for a change, a new face,” Wolfango Piccoli of the London-based political risk consultancy Teneo said.
Italy is dealing with a number of crises, ranging from rampant inflation and extreme weather events linked to climate change to an energy crisis exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine.
People who spoke to Agence-France Presse in Rome on Saturday said they were unsure the day before the results are announced as the latest polls show that the Brothers of Italy party is likely to win and form a government.
“I am worried by the fact that the polls have the rightwing as the winner, especially Giorgia Meloni,” said Maria Tasca, a 27-year-old student originally from Sicily.
“From what she has said on women’s rights, on young people’s rights, on rights in general, I see things going backward by at least 50 years.”
“The problems are worldwide, there’s no magic solution. But sometimes you have to change,” said a 75-year-old shop owner, who gave his name only as Dante.
Meloni, 45, has worked hard in recent weeks to reassure nervous investors and a worried Brussels that her party’s historical ties to supporters of dictator Benito Mussolini are no longer a problem.
She has softened her tone and posted a video of herself on TikTok making traditional pastries from the Puglia region.
On Thursday, she channelled Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings warrior Aragorn at the closing rally for the rightwing coalition, which includes her Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League, and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
The self-described “Christian mother” segued smoothly from the fantasy king to blaming the left for the country’s “drug dealers, thieves, rapists, and mafia”, adding: “This Italy ends on Sunday.”