Giorgia Meloni Set To Be Italy's First Far-Right Leader Since WWII

Giorgia Meloni has hailed a historic result as exit polls point to a victory for the right-wing coalition led by her party in Italy's Sunday election.

The 45-year-old leader of far-right party Brothers of Italy declared on Facebook overnight Sunday: "Today we made history."

Exit polls suggest the right-wing coalition that Meloni heads received between 43 and 45 percent of the vote, leaving the center-left and left-wing parties trailing.

Meloni is set to become Italy's first female prime minister, and the first leader from the far right since World War II. Full and final results are due later on Monday.

She wrote that she won't betray the trust of those of voted for her. "We are ready to lift Italy back up," she vowed, echoing the slogan that helped power her campaign in recent months.

Meloni dedicated the expected victory to "all the militants, leaders, symphatizers, and every single person who—in these years—contributed to make our dream true, giving out their soul and heart in a spontaneous and disinterested way."

She also thanked "those who despite difficulties and hard times stayed in their place, with faith and generosity.

"But most of all [this victory] is dedicated to those who believe and have always believed in us."

The election turnout fell to a historic low, with only 64 percent of voters heading to the ballots, nine percentage points lower than during the last election in 2018.

Sunday's vote was called after the collapse of Mario Draghi's coalition government in July, which led to the then-prime minister's resignation. During the electoral campaign, Brothers of Italy, which had remained outside Draghi's coalition, emerged for many Italian voters as the only party not compromised by links to the previous political establishment.

This chart, provided by Statista, shows the share of seats held by the major right-wing party in the national parliament of selected EU countries.

Part of Meloni's success is also due to the way she cleaned up her image after a long history of bashing the European Union, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community, and promoted the values of the traditional family against the right to abortion.

"I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm a Christian," has long been Meloni's slogan.

In the lead-up to the election Meloni abandoned her populist stance against the EU and promised to continue supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

Matteo Salvini's League won less than 10 percent of the vote. Only a few years ago the far-right populist party —a which forms part of Meloni's coalition—looked able to win power in Italy but the League lost 3.3 million votes compared with the 2018 election.

Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, which is also part of Meloni's coalition, gained a mere 8 percent of the vote.

But the biggest loser on Sunday was the Five Star Movement, a populist left-wing party which swept to power four years ago but lost 6.6 million votes compared with 2018. The left-wing coalition won about 26.5 percent of the vote.

Brothers of Italy, a party that descends from the Italian Social Movement founded by supporters of Benito Mussolini's fascist party, has gone from gaining 4 percent of the vote in the 2018 election to now seemingly being at the helm of a winning coalition, with over 20 percent of the vote.

Update, 9/26/2022 4:51 a.m. ET: This breaking news story has been updated to offer more context.