This Far-Right Italian Politician Is Relying on Social Media to Spread Her Message

Far-right Italian politician Giorgia Meloni couldn’t have picked a better target to raise her profile: the Egyptian Museum in Turin’s two-for-one admission offer for Arabic speakers. Standing behind a “No Islamization” banner, Meloni took to Facebook Live on Feb. 9 to decry the discount as discriminatory to Italians. A subsequent video of the museum’s director debating her outside the building became internet gold, and within days it made heavy rotation on national TV.

Meloni, 41, is the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a political party with fascist roots that is a junior partner in the center-right coalition assembled by media mogul and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to contest the March 4 national elections. A Bloomberg compilation of polls has the grouping at 36 percent as of Feb. 9—in the lead, but short of the 40 percent needed to form a government. And while support for Meloni’s party hovers at 5 percent, the congresswoman’s social media savvy could boost the coalition’s chances of winning power.