Giorgio Meloni is likely to become Italy's first female prime minister to head the most right-wing government since World War II after her conservative coalition triumphed in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Preliminary results showed the right-wing bloc should have a convincing majority in both houses of parliament, a potential rare opportunity for political stability in Italy after years of upheaval and fragile coalitions, Reuters estimates.
However, Meloni and her allies face a long list of challenges, including a spike in energy prices, the war in Ukraine and a renewed slowdown in the eurozone's third-largest economy, reports Hina.
"We have to remember that we are not at the end point, but at the starting point. From tomorrow we have to prove our worth," Meloni, 45, told cheering supporters of her nationalist "Brothers of Italy" party on Monday morning.
Meloni downplays the party's post-fascist roots and presents it as a mainstream political group like the British Conservatives.
She promised to continue to support Western policy towards Ukraine and not to experiment with Italy's fragile finances.
European capitals and financial markets will be watching her early moves closely given her Eurosceptic past and the ambivalent attitude of her coalition partners towards Russia.
In her victory speech, Meloni had a conciliatory tone.
"If we are called to govern this country, we will do it for all Italians with the aim of uniting people and focusing on what unites us, not what divides us," she said.
"It's time for accountability," she added.
First election results
After more than half of the ballots have been counted, the "Brothers of Italy" have 26 percent of the vote, which is a huge increase compared to only four percent in the previous parliamentary elections in 2018.
In contrast, Meloni's main ally in the centre-right coalition, as the coalition is officially called, had a disastrous night.
Matteo Salvini's League won, according to current results, about nine percent of the vote, which is a big drop compared to more than 17 percent four years ago, while Meloni overtook the League in its traditional strongholds in the north of the country as well.
The third member of that coalition, the Forza Italia party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, won around eight percent of the vote, so the Brothers of Italy party is dominant within the coalition.
Although the right-wing coalition is projected to have a comfortable majority in both the upper and lower houses of the Italian parliament, the coalition partners have diverging views on several issues that may be difficult to reconcile.
Unlike Meloni, Salvini questions Western sanctions against Russia, and he and Berlusconi have often expressed their admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
They also have differing views on how to deal with rising energy bills, and have made a series of promises, including tax cuts and pension reform, that Italy will struggle to afford.
Meloni will take over from Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who turned Rome towards the center of EU decision-making, relying on close ties with Paris and Berlin.
The government of technocratic Prime Minister Mario Draghi collapsed after 18 months after being abandoned by the populist Five Star Movement. Among the larger parties, the Brothers of Italy party was the only one that did not participate in that government of national unity.
Among the first leaders to congratulate Melona was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, close to Salvini and the leaders of the right-wing coalition.
64 percent of voters voted in the elections, which is ten percent less than four years ago and also the lowest turnout in history.
The right has taken full advantage of Italian electoral law that favors parties that form pre-electoral alliances.
Along with the traditional center-right coalition and the center-left coalition, the populist Five Star Movement won 16 percent of the vote, while the centrist coalition around the Action party won seven percent of the vote.
The largest party in the center-left coalition, the Democratic Party, won 19 percent of the vote.
"This is a sad night for the country," prominent PD representative Debora Seraciani told reporters.
"The right has a majority in the parliament, but not in the country," she added.
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