ROME – The Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni was poised Monday to become Italy’s first female prime minister after her centre right coalition won over 44 percent of votes in Sunday’s general election, enough to obtain a parliamentary majority, according to projections and a RAI poll.

 The 45-year-old Ms Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, founded by heirs of the MSI party nostalgic for the regime of Second World War dictator Benito Mussolini, garnered some 26 percent of the votes, while her populist coalition partner the League tumbled to just 8 percent, threatening the party leadership of anti-migrant demagogue Matteo Salvini, and ageing media mogul Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia reversed a recent decline also to take 8 percent of the vote.

 “Italians have clearly indicated they want a centre-right government led by Brothers of Italy.” Meloni told cheering supporters. “Italians have chosen us and we will not betray them, as we have never betrayed them.”

 The left-wing Democratic party headed by balding lacklustre leader Enrico Letta dipped to under 20 percent, reaching 26 percent with allies, while the radical Five Star Movement headed by the ambitious former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, consolidated its position with 15 percent despite the recent departure from the grouping of erstwhile leader Luigi di Maio, whose splinter party failed to obtain a parliamentary seat.

 Turnout Sunday was only 63.8, as much as eight percent less than in the 2018 general election.

 After final official results are issued, President Sergio Mattarella was due to begin consultations with political parties leading to his asking Ms Meloni to form a government that will be presented to parliament for approval in a confidence vote next month, 100 years after Mussolini was asked to form a government.

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