Giorgia Meloni: the woman poised to become the first Italian PM

In her teens, Giorgia Meloni used to sneak out at the dead of night and help plaster her Rome neighbourhood with far-right posters, playing a game of cat and mouse with leftist foes that could easily turn violent.

Fast forward 30 years and Meloni no longer needs clandestine sorties to get her message out. Instead, her image adorns billboards across the country ahead of elections on Sept. 25 that could crown her as Italy’s first female prime minister.

“It has been an incredible journey, but if I win the election, then that is not the end, it is really only the beginning,” Meloni told Reuters last week from her parliamentary office that overlooks Rome’s historic city centre.

The rapid rise in Meloni’s fortunes is intricately tied to the transformation of her own party, the Brothers of Italy, which has moved out of the shadows and into the mainstream, without ever fully repudiating its post-fascist roots.

Pollsters predict the group will emerge as Italy’s largest party, taking up to 25% of the vote against just 4.3% in the 2018 election and leapfrogging once dominant allies – Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.