Still there: Meloni breaks Italy’s government record

Berlusconi overtaken

Still there: Meloni breaks Italy’s government record

She has now been head of government for 1,413 days in a row – an unusually long time for Italy. The right-wing politician has a stable government, but there are first cracks. Will she reach another milestone soon?

Six months at most and then it would be over – according to Giorgia Meloni’s own recollection, these were the forecasts for her right-wing government. The financial crisis will come Italy be completely isolated on the international stage. “And then they all woke up bathed in sweat,” the Italian Prime Minister said almost two years ago, mocking those who predicted a quick end for her government.

Now follows a historical punchline: As of today, Meloni’s government has been in office longer continuously than any other cabinet since the founding of the republic in 1946. 1,413 days have passed since her center-right coalition was sworn in on October 22, 2022. This means she replaces Silvio Berlusconi’s second government as the longest-lived to date. Berlusconi ruled for a total of 1,412 days from 2001 to 2005.

The 49-year-old Meloni and her coalition of three right-wing and conservative parties have achieved what their predecessors rarely managed: they ensure stability. There have been 68 governments since 1946 and they lasted an average of just 13 months.

However, Meloni’s record only concerns the continuous term of office of a single cabinet. If you add up several governments under the same prime minister, Berlusconi remains at the top for more than nine years. Meloni is currently ranked seventh in this ranking.

The politician and her Fratelli d’Italia party are staging this as a great success. A rally is planned for Friday in the southern Italian city of Bari, where party leader Meloni will also give a speech in the evening.

And Meloni can actually point to what she sees as a decent balance sheet: her Fratelli with the Lega and Forza Italia have been ruling in a stable manner for almost four years. Despite friction, especially between the two junior partners, the coalition is holding. In the polls, Meloni and her Fratelli are at around 27 percent, clearly ahead of all other parties.

Outside Italy, their government is by no means isolated. Corresponding fears have not come true. Shortly before the election in autumn 2022, the magazine “Stern” ran the headline with a view to Meloni: “The most dangerous woman in Europe”. Also President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen said at the time that if things went “in a difficult direction,” the EU had “tools.”

The roots of her party were mentioned again and again at the time, and Meloni herself was described as a post-fascist. The Fratelli are a successor party to the neo-fascist MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), founded in 1946 by loyalists of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945).