Populism Is Shaping the Italian Upcoming Elections

If you were to walk down any main Italian lane this September, you would feel overwhelmed by the high-impact street advertising and billboard displays. It is not the upcoming Milan fashion week that has induced this promotional frenzy –– it is the general political snap election of Sept. 25, 2022.

Following the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi in July, which plunged the country into a severe political crisis, Italians are called to vote for a new parliament and are now undergoing a ferocious electoral campaign.

The right-wing coalition, starring Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigrant League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, is predicted to attain 46% of the vote.

The left, led by the Democratic Party (PD), is forecasted to win 28.5% of the vote, while the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) — which seems to reject any coalition — could reach up to 13%.

Pollsters foresee Meloni’s triumph, representing a turning point in Italian history: the first post-war far-right government and its first female prime minister.

But how have we come to this point? Since the breakdown of the former party system in the early 1990s, electoral support for populist parties has constantly been increasing. These movements now transcend any distinction between right and left extremes of the political spectrum and agree on the idea that its leaders alone represent “the people” in their struggle against the “elite establishment.”

The aggregate votes for populists increased from 30% in the general election of 1994 to almost 70% in 2018. No other major Western European democracy has witnessed such rising support for populists. Party leaders have built their campaigns by responding to people’s collective sentiments of anti-institutionalism, anti-factionalism and distrust towards politics and society. Moreover, populist candidates continue to benefit from massive online electoral advertising — pricey but profitable.

By gathering data for individual parties over the last month, the magnitude of the phenomenon can be quantified. Matteo Salvini’s party spent 51 thousand euros in thirty days between Instagram and Facebook; Meloni followed with a social media expenditure of 40 thousand euros. Silvio Berlusconi — 86 years old, face frozen by cosmetic surgery, more than 2,500 court appearances in 106 trials, including tax fraud, abuse of office, bribery, corruption of police officers, judges and politicians, collusion, defamation, extortion, false accounting, mafia, money laundering, underage prostitution influence and embezzlement — has made his newest appearance on TikTok, wooing young voters.

Freeing a campaign spot for the senator of Forza Italia, a candidate for the upcoming elections, promising an income and pension for Italian housewives, further degenerates Italian politics. Forza Italia’s electoral video — which looks more like a two-and-a-half-minute teleshopping of household devices — shows the nominee next to two women, one pretending to vacuum, the other ironing as she hides a soccer ball under her vest to look pregnant.

Italy prepares to welcome the Brothers of Italy as the winning party, which has gained consent by using the motto “God, homeland and family,” a slogan that the fascists employed in the 1930s. This motto logically excludes whoever does not identify as Christian, whoever was not born on Italian soil and whoever does not recognize the traditional value of family.

This raises the question: when does populism become a threat to democracy? It does when it targets a particular social group. To serve “the people,” populist parties must first define everything that does not fall under this category, thus excluding vulnerable and marginalized populations, such as religious or ethnic minorities and immigrants.

What can be done to counter the effects of populism? Vote! Vote for politicians and parties who make credible promises, do not simply want to shut down criticism or view their opponents as their enemies, and are committed to the democratic rules of the game.