Italy may be forced to face Fascist past with voters poised to elect far-right government

As Italy heads to the polls this Sunday to elect its next government, the country looks set to take its sharpest turn to the right since Benito Mussolini.

Four years ago, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, named after the opening words of the country’s national anthem, was a hard-right outlier that had a mere four per cent of the vote, its post-Fascist origins and angry nationalist rhetoric too much for most Italians.

Since then, Meloni, 45, has gone from little sister status among Italy’s right-wing parties, including the anti-immigrant League led by Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, to dominating them. Latest polls