Futuro Nazionale (FN), the party launched by former special troops general Roberto Vannacci last February, has already become the fourth largest party, after Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, the Democratic Party and the M5S, according to the latest polls that give him over 8% at national level. Vannacci pursues a rightwing populist agenda, anti-EU, anti-Green, anti-war and anti-immigrants. He became popular through his book “Il Mondo Alla Rovescia” (The World Upside Down), which received immense negative coverage by mainstream and liberal media, so that Vannacci says he is thankful for that, otherwise nobody would have known him.
At the last European elections, Vannacci ran in a Lega slate and got over 530,000 votes, second only to PM Meloni. Lega head Matteo Salvini had made him a deputy secretary general of the Lega, but eventually Vannacci left the Lega and created his own party. Now the Lega has collapsed to 4%.
At the general elections next year, given Italy’s electoral law, the center-right coalition (FdI, FI and Lega) has a chance to win only if they include FN in the coalition. This, however, means that either party must make concessions. So far, Vannacci’s people have voted against the government on most issues, emphatically including sanctions against Russia and aid to Ukraine.
