Meloni/Antoniozzi – Insieme per un centrodestra più forte
(Meloni/Antoniozzi – Together for a Stronger Center-Right)
In May 2019, Italians assembled at the polls to choose their representatives in the European Parliament. Among the major political parties in the running was Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI). Born out of the dissolution of both the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI) in 1995 and the short-lived Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance, NA) in 2009, Meloni's far-right party – despite its frequent claims to the contrary – shares much in common with Italy's various other fascistic movements, group, and political parties (Brown and Newth 2024: 1-2). FdI's logo, for instance, features the MSI's tricolor flame symbol, serving as a sly, but crystal clear, nod to the ideological community out of which Meloni's so-called "center-right" party emerged (Fig. 1). In 1992, furthermore, Meloni joined the MSI's neo-fascist youth group, the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front), which was where she was first introduced to neo-fascist politics. Following the MSI's collapse in the mid-1990s, Meloni was appointed as the National Director for the NA's far-right youth group, Azione Studentesca (Student Action, AS), providing her with valuable experience in grassroots political organizing and the transformation of Italian youth consciousness. (AS, along with Gioventù Nazionale (National Youth), is one of FdI's two far-right youth groups.)
With its disarming blue, white, and yellow colors, this poster's catchphrase calls for Italians to stand "Insieme per un centro-destra più forte" (Together for a Stronger Center-Right). A manifestation of FdI's program of rebranding the party's quasi-fascist platform as "conservatism" and "sovranism," as the organization's logo proclaims, the marketing of FdI as "center-right" – and not openly neo-fascist – undoubtedly played a significant role within the party's successes at the polls between 2018 and 2022.
Although FdI did not win the largest share of votes in the May 2019 European Union parliamentary elections, earning just 1.7 million votes – as opposed to La Lega's (The League) 9.1 million votes – the party did win five additional seats in the European Parliament. In September 2022, however, Meloni's years of political organization and strategizing paid off when Italians voted in a majority of FdI deputies to the Italian Parliament (Kirby 2022), ushering in the Italian Republic's first Fascism-sympathetic, far-right government since the collapse of Benito Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic; 1943-45).
In addition to this version of the poster, FdI also produced a billboard-sized version, which is featured in this collection.
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