Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as Italy’s new prime minister to become the country’s first female leader heading its most right-wing government since World War II.
The swearing-in ceremony took place at Italy’s presidential palace. Her cabinet is expected to be approved in a parliamentary confidence vote early next week.
The new government’s priority will be to tackle a cost of living crisis exacerbated by sky-high energy prices and rising interest rates, which weigh on Italy’s heavy public debt.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party coalition emerged triumphant in last month’s general election. Meloni announced her Cabinet on Friday evening. Her coalition allies include the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini and the conservative Forza Italia party headed by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Her rise to power as the head of the party she co-founded in December 2012 has been meteoric.
Her speeches indicated her strong anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and conservative statements on family-related issues. Meloni, who campaigned on a motto of “God, country and family”, ran an aggressive campaign calling for the preservation of Christian identity and the “traditional” family.
“Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!” she gave at a speech in Spain last June.
She advocates traditional Catholic family values and declared at a 2019 rally in Rome: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian.”