Italy PM Meloni Marks Record in Power With Eye on 2027 Elections
Stability has been a shield thanks to which we have been able to protect this country, Italy PM Giorgia Meloni said
Bari, Italy: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday hailed Italy's new political stability but admitted failings as she celebrated her government becoming the longest-running in the country's postwar history.
In a fiery speech at a rally in Bari in southern Italy, the hard-right leader also said EU countries that had treated her government as "extremists" on immigration were now "copying" Italian policies.
"Stability has been a shield thanks to which we have been able to protect this country," she told thousands of supporters, adding that Italy was no longer "the sick man of Europe".
"There have been days when I felt like I was swimming in glue but I didn't give up and I don't plan to do so now," she said, effectively launching her re-election campaign ahead of a vote next year.
Meloni became Italy's first woman prime minister on October 22, 2022 and has been in charge of the same administration for 1,413 days -- one more than billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi managed.
At times ebullient, humorous and scathing, the 49-year-old Meloni drew repeated cheers from the crowd at the rally organised by her Brothers of Italy (FdI) by the sea in the port area of Bari.
There were food stalls selling sandwiches, crepes and Bari's traditional "Assassin Spaghetti" -- pasta with a spicy, smoky sauce.
Maurizio Cecconelli, 61, a lawyer from Terni in central Italy, said Meloni's government had shown "tangible results".
"Let's hope she gets another five years to achieve all the things she wants," he told AFP.
Salvatore Sinopoli, a 37-year-old engineer from the southern Calabria region, said she had "restored Italy's international position".
Sergio De Nardo, a 66-year-old lawyer, agreed saying: "She has shown her qualities particularly on the international, European level. She has made herself respected."
Meloni reeled off government achievements but admitted that on some issues "the answers are not coming as quickly as they should".
Debt-laden Italy's fiscal stability has greatly improved -- although critics say the stability has failed to translate into growth.
"Have wages increased? No. Petrol costs more, job insecurity has increased, people are retiring less and the healthcare system is functioning less effectively," Maurizio Landini, head of the CGIL trade union, said ahead of Friday's rally.
Meloni's critics also gathered in Bari for an anti-government demonstration amid a heavy security presence in the city.
The organisers of that rally accused the government of creating a "war and weapons economy" and a "police state" and of fuelling a climate of hate against migrants.
- Far-right challenge -
Meloni says Rome's influence on the world stage has grown, despite an early friendship with US President Donald Trump falling spectacularly apart after she chastised him for attacking the pope.
Her coalition -- which includes the far-right, anti-immigrant League and right-wing Forza Italia -- has passed some 300 laws and decrees, the majority tackling "security" threats, from petty criminals to ravers and climate protesters.
The Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, won the 2022 election on a pledge to tackle illegal migration and says its policies have cut migrant arrivals by 80 percent.
But the government faces a major challenge in the form of ex-general Roberto Vannacci, whose National Future (FN) party is further to the far right than Meloni's.
Vannacci broke away from the governing coalition and may prove to be the kingmaker following next year's election as his party's spectacular rise has seen it overtake both the League and Forza Italia in the polls.
