Centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
leader Enrico Letta said Friday there had been strong Russian
interference in the campaign of the September 25 general
election in order to favour the right, which is way ahead in the
polls.
"Russia has come into this electoral campaign," Letta told
Spanish newspaper El Periódico.
"There is strong interference in favour of the right, because
(the Russian government) knows that our position will continue
to be in line with a position against (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin."
Letta said opinion polls gave the centre right a big lead but
also showed that 45% of voters are still undecided, vowing to
work on them to "convince them of the risks they are running
with the right".
One of the main threats, he told El Periódico, is that of ending
up "out of the heart of Europe) and alongside Poland and
Hungary, two countries (led today by governments which have been
sanctioned by the EU for many issues linked to fundamental
rights."
He accused far right leader Giorgia Meloni of the post-fascist
Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and former anti-migrant interior
minister and League party leader Matteo Salvini of wanting to
position Italy alongside Poland and Hungary.
He also recalled that Salvini and three-time former premier and
centre right Forza Italia (FI) party leader Silvio Berlusconi
are "two friends of Russia".
While both have parted company with Putin over the Ukraine
invasion, Berlusconi is an old personal friend of the Russian
leader and claims credit for briefly bringing about a
rapprochement with the West in 2001, while Salvini often sported
a t-shirt with Putin's face on it and called him one of the best
leaders in the world, along with Orban.
Conservative leader Giorgia Meloni, on track to become Italy's
first woman premier after the September 25 general election, on
Thursday vowed that the centre-right coalition would defend
national interests without destroying the European Union if it
wins power next month.
"We want a different Italian stance on the international scene,
for example towards the European Commission," the post-Fascist
Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader told Reuters.
"That does not mean that we want to destroy Europe, that we want
to leave Europe, that we want to do crazy things," said the
tough-talking 45-year-old from a working class Roman
neighborhood, whose national-conservative European friends and
allies include France's Marine Le Pen, Hungary's Viktor Orban,
Spain's Vox and Poland's Law and Justice party.
"It simply means explaining that the defence of national
interests is as important for us as it is for the French and the
Germans".
Meloni, who recently told Fox News in her first English-language
interview that she would be proud to be premier, sent a video to
the foreign press in English, French and Spanish two weeks ago
saying there was no nostalgia for Fascism in her party and the
FdI's position in the western camp was "crystal clear", sharing
values with Britain's Conservatives, America's Republicans and
Israel's Likud.
"I have read that a Brothers of Italy victory in the September
elections would be a disaster heralding an authoritarian shift,
Italy's exit from the euro and other nonsense of this ilk," she
said.
"None of this is true. The Italian right has handed over Fascism
to history for decades now, condemning without ambiguity the
suppression of democracy and the ignominious laws against the
Jews.
"For years I have had the honour of leading the European
Conservative Party which shares values and experiences with
Britain's Tories, America's Republicans and Israel's Likud. "Our
position in the western camp is transparent and crystal clear as
we have shown once more by condemning without ifs or buts
Russia's brutal aggression against Ukraine and helping from the
opposition to strengthen Italy's position in European and
international fora".
Meloni's critics have urged her to remove from the party logo
the neo-Fascist Tricolour Flame that recalls the late-WWII
Italian Social Republic (RSI) Nazi puppet statelet based at Salò
as well as the postwar neo-Fascist MSI party that RSI members
founded and which became a more moderate rightist party in 1995.
She has said she is proud of the flame and argues that dropping
it would be irrelevant since she has long proven her more
moderate credentials.
"Brothers of Italy" is the first line of the national anthem.
The centre right bloc is at 47% in a new opinion poll for the
September 25 genera election spelling a clear majority in both
house of parliament and the advent of Meloni as premier, the
Demopolis research institute said Wednesday. FdI is top party on
24%, followed by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) of former
premier Letta on 22.6%, Demopolis said in its latest survey.
FdI's main ally the nationalist League party of former
anti-migrant interior minister Salvini is third on 14.5%,
according to the poll. Ex-premier Giuseppe Conte's populist and
left-leaning 5-Star Movement (M5S), which recently split from an
alliance with the PD and is standing alone, is fourth on 11%.
The third cog in the centre right machine, three-time ex-premier
and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, is
fifth on 7% and the so-called 'third pole' of Azione-Italia Viva
(IV), whose leader and former industry minister Carlo Calenda
also recently split with the PD over its alliance with smaller
more leftist parties, is sixth on 5.8%. The PD's allies, Italian
Left-Greens, is polling at 3.7%, and the independent Italexit
party is on 3.1%.
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