Date | 20 October 2022 – 22 October 2022 |
---|---|
Location | Italy |
Type | Parliamentary government formation |
Cause | 2022 Italian general election |
Participants | FdI, PD, Lega, M5S, FI, A–IV, Aut, CdI, Mixed Group |
Outcome | Formation of the Meloni Cabinet |
In the 2022 Italian general election, the centre-right coalition [ citation needed ] led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) won an absolute majority of seats in the Italian Parliament. [1] On 20 October, a few days following the elections of the presidents of the two houses of Parliament, Ignazio La Russa of FdI on 13 October for the Senate of the Republic, and Lorenzo Fontana of the League on 14 October for the Chamber of Deputies, [2] [3] consultations on the formation of a new cabinet officially began. [4]
The Cabinet was announced on 21 October and was officially sworn in on the next day. It was one of the fastest government formations in the history of the Italian Republic. [5] The first Italian cabinet headed by a female Prime Minister, [6] it was variously described as a shift to the political right, [7] and as the first far-right-led Italian government since World War II. [8] [9]
On 13 October, FdI's Ignazio La Russa was elected President of the Senate of the Republic. [10] He is the first politician with a neo-fascist background and to come from a post-fascist party to hold the position, which is the second highest-ranking office of the Italian Republic. [11] [12] [13] He was proclaimed president by Liliana Segre, a senator for life and Holocaust survivor, who presided the first meeting of the Senate due to her being the oldest member present. [14] On 14 October, Lorenzo Fontana, who is widely seen as an ultraconservative for his long-time anti-abortion and anti-LGBT views, [15] was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies for the League. [16]
Immediately after the first meeting of the new legislature, the XIX legislature of Italy, tensions began to grow within the centre-right coalition. On 13 October, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) refused to support La Russa's candidacy for President of the Senate of the Republic. [17] La Russa nonetheless succeeded in being elected by obtaining 116 votes out of 206 in the first round, [18] thanks to support from opposition parties. [19] [20] [21]
Tensions further grew, in particular between Berlusconi and Meloni, whom Berlusconi described as "patronising, overbearing, arrogant ... [and] offensive" in a series of written notes in the Senate. [22] [23] Additionally, Berlusconi's views of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin, with whom he said he was rekindling their friendship and claimed to have received vodka as a gift and exchanged letters, [24] [25] came to light a few days later, when a recording of a private conversation between him and MPs from his party was leaked. [26] [27] Meloni declared that "Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance", before adding: "Whoever doesn't agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government." [28] [29]
During talks with President Sergio Mattarella on 20 October, delegates from the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, Action – Italia Viva, For the Autonomies, and various sub-groups within the Mixed Group stated they would not back a Meloni-led government during confidence votes. On the following day, delegates from FdI, the League, FI, and Civics of Italy, as well as Us Moderates and the Associative Movement Italians Abroad subgroup within the Mixed Group, which together held 237 seats out of 400 in the lower house and 116 seats out of 206 in the upper house, announced to Mattarella they had reached an agreement to form a coalition government with Meloni as Prime Minister. [30] In the afternoon, Mattarella summoned Meloni to the Quirinal Palace and gave her the task of forming a new cabinet, which was officially sworn in on 22 October. [31] [32]
On 31 October, the government nominated its deputy ministers and undersecretaries. [33] Galeazzo Bignami, one of the chosen deputy ministers, [34] [35] caused controversy and garnered international attention as a 2005 photo of him with a Nazi armband became public. [36] [37]
On 25 October, Meloni gave her first official speech as Prime Minister in front of the Chamber of Deputies, before the confidence vote on her cabinet. During her speech, she stressed the weight of being the first woman to serve as head of the Italian government. [38] Meloni thanked several Italian women, notably including Tina Anselmi, Samantha Cristoforetti, Grazia Deledda, Oriana Fallaci, Nilde Iotti, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Maria Montessori, who she said, "with the boards of their own examples, built the ladder that today allows me to climb and break the heavy glass ceiling placed over our heads." [39] [40] Later that same day, the Chamber of Deputies approved the Meloni Cabinet with 235 votes in favor, 154 votes against, and 5 abstentions. [41] [42] [43] On 26 October, the Senate of the Republic approved the Meloni Cabinet with 115 votes in favor, 79 against, and 5 abstentions. Senators for life Elena Cattaneo and Mario Monti abstained, while senators for life Liliana Segre, Carlo Rubbia, Renzo Piano, and Giorgio Napolitano were not present during the vote. [44] [45]
House of Parliament | Vote | Parties | Votes |
---|---|---|---|
Chamber of Deputies (Voting: 389 of 400, Majority: 195) | Yes | FdI, Lega, FI, NM, MAIE | 235 / 389 |
No | PD, M5S, A–IV, AVS, +E | 154 / 389 | |
Abstention | SVP, ScN | 5 / 400 | |
Senate of the Republic (Voting: 199 of 206, Majority: 98) | Yes | FdI, Lega, FI, NM, MAIE | 115 / 199 |
No | PD, M5S, A–IV, AVS, Cb | 79 / 199 | |
Abstention | SVP, ScN, senators for life | 5 / 199 |
The People of Freedom was a centre-right political party in Italy. The PdL launched by Silvio Berlusconi as an electoral list, including Forza Italia and National Alliance, on 27 February for the 2008 Italian general election. The list was later transformed into a party during a party congress on 27–29 March 2009. The party's leading members included Angelino Alfano, Renato Schifani, Renato Brunetta, Roberto Formigoni, Maurizio Sacconi, Maurizio Gasparri, Mariastella Gelmini, Antonio Martino, Giancarlo Galan, Maurizio Lupi, Gaetano Quagliariello, Daniela Santanchè, Sandro Bondi, and Raffaele Fitto.
Sergio Mattarella is an Italian politician, statesman, jurist, academic, and lawyer who is currently serving as the 12th president of Italy since 2015. He is the longest-serving president in the history of the Italian Republic. Since Giorgio Napolitano's death in 2023, Mattarella has been the only living Italian president.
Ignazio Benito Maria La Russa is an Italian politician who is serving as president of the Senate of the Republic since 13 October 2022. He is the first politician with a neo-fascist background to hold the position of President of the Senate, the second highest-ranking office of the Italian Republic.
Giorgia Meloni is an Italian politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Italy since October 2022, the first woman to hold this position. A member of the Chamber of Deputies since 2006, she has led the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) political party since 2014 and has been the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party since 2020. Forbes ranked Meloni as the fourth most powerful woman in the world in 2023. In 2024 she was listed among the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Maria Elisabetta Alberti, known by her married name as Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, is an Italian lawyer and politician, serving as Minister fo Institutional Reforms since 2022. She was President of the Italian Senate from 2018 to 2022. She was the first woman ever to have held this position. Casellati is a long-time member of the liberal-conservative party Forza Italia and served as Undersecretary of Health and Justice in previous governments. In 2022, she was nominated as candidate for President of Italy by the centre-right coalition.
Lorenzo Fontana is an Italian politician and member of the League (Lega), who is serving as President of the Chamber of Deputies since 14 October 2022.
Brothers of Italy is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Italy, that is currently the country's ruling party. It became the largest party after the 2022 Italian general election. The party is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy. Meloni's tenure has been described as the "most right-wing" republican government in Italy since World War II, whilst her time in government is frequently described as a shift towards the far-right in Italian politics.
Forza Italia is a centre-right political party in Italy, whose ideology includes elements of liberal conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism and populism. FI is a member of the European People's Party. Silvio Berlusconi was the party's leader and president until his death in 2023. The party has since been led by Antonio Tajani, who had been vice president and coordinator and now functions as secretary. Other leading members include Elisabetta Casellati.
Guido Crosetto is an Italian businessman and politician, who has been serving as Minister of Defence since 22 October 2022 in the government of Giorgia Meloni.
The 2022 Italian general election was a snap election held in Italy on 25 September 2022. After the fall of the Draghi government, which led to a parliamentary impasse, President Sergio Mattarella dissolved Parliament on 21 July, and called for new elections. Regional elections in Sicily were held on the same day. The results of the general election showed the centre-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, a right-wing political party with neo-fascist roots, winning an absolute majority of seats in the Italian Parliament. Meloni was appointed Prime Minister of Italy on 22 October, becoming the first woman to hold the office.
The first Conte government was the 65th government of the Italian Republic. It was led by Giuseppe Conte, an independent, and it was in office from 1 June 2018 to 5 September 2019.
Marco Marsilio has been President of Abruzzo since 23 February 2019.
The 2021 Italian government crisis was a political event in Italy that began in January 2021 and ended the following month. It includes the events that follow the announcement of Matteo Renzi, leader of Italia Viva (IV) and former Prime Minister, that he would revoke IV's support to the Government of Giuseppe Conte.
Europeanists is a political party in Italy. Amid a government crisis triggered after Matteo Renzi announced that he would revoke Italia Viva's support to the government of Giuseppe Conte, Europeanists formed on 27 January 2021 as a component of a joint parliamentary group in the Italian Senate, with the aim to support Conte's cabinet.
The Draghi government was the 67th government of the Italian Republic, led by former President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi. It was in office between 13 February 2021 and 22 October 2022.
The following is a list of events during the year 2022 in Italy.
The 2022 Italian government crisis was a political event in Italy that began on 14 July. It includes the events that followed the announcement of Giuseppe Conte, leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and former Prime Minister of Italy, that the M5S would withdraw its support to the national unity government of Mario Draghi over a bill regarding an economic stimulus to combat the ongoing energy and economic crisis. The government fell a week later when the M5S, Lega, and Forza Italia deliberately refused to take part in a vote of confidence in the Government.
Democratic Party – Democratic and Progressive Italy is the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party (PD) and minor allied parties in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, formed in October 2022. Prior to the formation of the group, its name was that of the lead electoral list of the centre-left coalition in the 2022 Italian general election.
The 2022 Italian general election was held on 25 September, resulting in a majority of seats of both houses of the Italian Parliament for the centre-right coalition. The Meloni Cabinet was announced on 21 October and was officially sworn in on the next day. The first Cabinet headed by a female Prime Minister of Italy, it was variously described as a shift to the political right, as well as the first far-right-led Italian government since World War II. The Meloni Cabinet successufully won the confidence votes on 25–26 October with a comfortable majority in both houses of Parliament.
The Meloni government is the 68th government of the Italian Republic, the first headed by Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, who is also the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Italy. The government was sworn in on 22 October 2022. It was one of the fastest government formations in the history of the Italian Republic. It was variously described as a shift to the political right, as well as the first far-right-led coalition in Italy since World War II.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link)