Meloni becomes Italy’s first female PM

Giorgia Meloni has been officially named Italy’s first female prime minister to head its 68th government since 1946 when the country became a republic.

Meloni, head of the nationalist Brothers of Italy, swept to victory in an election last month in alliance with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League.

“Giorgia Meloni has accepted the mandate and has presented her list of ministers,” presidential official Ugo Zampetti told reporters after she held talks with President Sergio Mattarella in his Quirinale palace in Rome.

Meloni’s cabinet team sets her seal on the country’s most right-wing government since World War Two.

Meloni, 45, named Giancarlo Giorgetti of the League party as her economy minister and said the foreign ministry will go to Antonio Tajani from Forza Italia.

The list of ministers read out by Meloni, who has transformed the fortunes of the Brothers of Italy but has only limited ministerial experience, included just six other women.

In all, nine ministries were handed out to Brothers of Italy politicians and five each to the League and Forza Italia, with technocrats given a further five cabinet posts.

The new government will be formally sworn in on Saturday morning, after which it will face confidence votes in both houses of parliament next week.

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Although the process of putting together a new administration has been rapid by Italian standards, it has exposed tensions in the coalition, with Berlusconi repeatedly appearing to try to undermine Meloni’s authority.

Berlusconi, who is 86, and sits in the Senate, as expected did not take a cabinet role.

League leader Salvini, whose authority was dented by his party’s relatively poor showing in the election, will be infrastructure minister.

Meloni stressed this week that her administration would be firmly pro-NATO and pro-European.

“Anyone who does not agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government,” she said.

She asserted her authority after Berlusconi told Forza Italia lawmakers that he blamed Ukraine for the war there and said he had exchanged gifts and “sweet letters” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Her government will replace a national unity administration led by former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi, who attended a European Union summit in Brussels on Friday in one of his last acts as prime minister.

Zainab Sa’id