Background and foundation In November 2012,
Ignazio La Russa and
Maurizio Gasparri, leaders of the
Protagonist Right, a faction within
The People of Freedom (PdL), announced their support for
Angelino Alfano in the party primary scheduled for December. The subsequent cancellation of the primary was not agreed with by La Russa and many others in the party. On 16 December 2012,
Giorgia Meloni,
Fabio Rampelli,
Guido Crosetto, and
Giuseppe Cossiga organised in Rome the Primaries of Ideas, in which they openly criticised
Silvio Berlusconi's leadership and any possible prospect of an electoral alliance with Prime Minister
Mario Monti, proposed by some leading factions of the party, among them
Liberamente,
Network Italy,
Reformism and Freedom,
Liberal Populars,
New Italy, and
FareItalia. On 17 December 2012, La Russa, one of the three PdL national coordinators, announced he was leaving the party to form the "National Centre-right" (
Centrodestra Nazionale), including not just right-wingers but also
Christian democrats and
liberals from
Forza Italia (FI) such as Crosetto and Cossiga. The split from the PdL was agreed with Berlusconi to better represent the Italian right and offer an appealing choice to right-wing voters. On 21 December, the two groups, formed mainly by former members of
National Alliance such as La Russa, Meloni, Rampelli, Massimo Corsaro, Viviana Beccalossi, and
Alfredo Mantica, joined forces as "Brothers of Italy – National Centre-right", usually shortened to Brothers of Italy (FdI). La Russa's followers soon formed their own groups in most regional councils, starting with the
Regional Council of Lombardy, and the
Senate of the Republic.
Carlo Fidanza and
Marco Scurria, MEPs in the
European People's Party group, also joined the party.
2013 general election and aftermath In the
2013 Italian general election, the party obtained 2.0% of the vote and won nine seats in the
Chamber of Deputies. On 5 March 2013, the party's executive board appointed La Russa president, Crosetto coordinator, and Meloni leader in the Chamber of Deputies. During the
2013 Italian presidential election's fourth ballot on 19 April, FdI decided to support
Franco Marini, a
Democratic Party (PD) member supported also by PdL and
Lega Nord (LN). Following the unsuccessful outcome of the vote, FdI started voting for colonel Sergio De Caprio, known for having arrested
Sicilian Mafia boss
Salvatore Riina. On 29 April, Meloni announced in the Chamber of Deputies the party's vote of no confidence for
Enrico Letta's government, supported by PD, PdL, and
Civic Choice. In September 2013, FdI launched "Workshop for Italy" (''Officina per l'Italia'', abbr. OpI), a political initiative aimed at broadening the party's base. The newly formed OpI's political committee, led by Cossiga, included, among others, former minister of Foreign Affairs
Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, former members of AN (notably including
Gianni Alemanno,
Mario Landolfi,
Sergio Berlato,
Adolfo Urso, and
Souad Sbai), former members of FI (including former
Socialists such as
Giulio Tremonti and
Antonio Guidi, and former
Christian Democrats such as Fabio Garagnani), former members of the
Union of the Centre (
Magdi Allam and Luciano Ciocchetti), and a former member of the LN (Oreste Rossi). Alemanno's
Italy First and Urso's
FareItalia were to join FdI by February 2014.
National Alliance Foundation and
Guido Crosetto in 2014 In December 2013, the National Alliance Foundation, the association in charge of administering the assets of the defunct party, authorised FdI, supported by Alemanno and Urso, to use the logo of AN in the
2014 European Parliament election in Italy, despite opposition from the
Movement for National Alliance alternative front composed of
The Right,
Future and Freedom,
Tricolour Flame,
I the South, and
New Alliance, as well as the former members of AN who had joined FI such as senators
Maurizio Gasparri and
Altero Matteoli. In February 2014, the party organised a primary in which members and supporters agreed to change the party's name to Brothers of Italy – National Alliance, chose the new symbol, including in small AN's one, and re-elected Meloni as president. During the party's first congress in March 2014, FdI ratified the primary's outcomes; the congress also voted for the party to leave the
European People's Party Group in the
European Parliament and adopt
Eurosceptic positions. In the
2014 European Parliament election in Italy, FdI obtained 3.7% of the vote and no seats, while doing well in Central and Southern Italy, especially in
Lazio (5.6%),
Umbria (5.4%),
Abruzzo (4.7%), and
Campania (4.5%), as well as in north-eastern
Friuli-Venezia Giulia (4.4%). During an assembly of the association in October 2015, the representatives of FdI, supported by former AN heavyweights who had remained in the PdL, won a decisive vote over a front led by Alemanno, who had left FdI earlier, joined forces with former allies of
Gianfranco Fini and wanted to form a larger party, including FdI, which retained the use of AN's name and symbol, while Alemanno announced that he would create a Movement for the United Right.
Road to the 2018 general election In November 2015, it was announced that the party would undergo a new process of enlargement and that a new political committee, named
Our Land (TN), would be launched by January 2016. TN would comprise FdI, along with other right-wing politicians, notably including Cossiga (former deputy of FI and founding member of FdI),
Alberto Giorgetti (a deputy of FI, who was long a member of AN) and Walter Rizzetto (deputy of
Free Alternative, originally elected with the
Five Star Movement). In March 2016, Rizzetto officially joined FdI and it was announced that the party's group in the Chamber would be renamed Brothers of Italy–Our Land. The name change never happened, but the party's enlargement continued with the switch of two deputies from FI. In the
2017 Sicilian regional election,
Nello Musumeci, a conservative close to the party, was elected
president of Sicily. During the party's second congress in December 2017, Meloni was re-elected president, the party was renamed simply Brothers of Italy, and a new symbol was unveiled. In the event, FdI welcomed several newcomers, notably including
Daniela Santanchè and Bruno Mancuso, respectively from FI and
Popular Alternative (AP). Mancuso became the party's third senator after Stefano Bertacco, as well as Bartolomeo Amidei, had previously switched from FI. Additionally, Crosetto and Urso returned to an active role in the party. Finally,
Alessandro Urzì led the
Alto Adige in the Heart party into FdI. after the 2018 election
2018 general election and aftermath In the
2018 Italian general election, as part of the
centre-right coalition, FdI obtained 4.4% of the vote and won more than three times the seats won in 2013. In November 2018, in the run-up to the
2019 European Parliament election in Italy, the party agreed to join the
European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, opening the way for a pact with other minor conservative parties in Italy, notably including
Raffaele Fitto's
Direction Italy. On 29 October 2019, Direction Italy officially merged into FdI, and on 7 December 2019 the
National Movement for Sovereignty of
Roberto Menia and
Gianni Alemanno merged into FdI. In 2020, other minor right-wing parties, such as Gabriella Peluso's Protagonist South and Lorenzo Loiacono's Right Bank, also merged into FdI. Party member
Marco Marsilio won 48.0% of the vote in the
2019 Abruzzo regional election and became FdI's first regional president on 10 February. Since governing the region, which ranked as the ninth-worst region by number of deaths per capita during the
COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, critics said undermined access to abortion and privatised health care, FdI has made it harder for migrants to access
social housing. Meloni reclaimed this by saying that "Italians first is not just a slogan." For the
2019 European Parliament election, FdI recruited several candidates, including five outgoing MEPs (two of Direction Italy, plus three more recent splinters from FI:
Fabrizio Bertot,
Stefano Maullu, and
Elisabetta Gardini), other former FI politicians (
Alfredo Antoniozzi and Monica Stefania Baldi), and sociologist
Francesco Alberoni. FdI obtained 6.4% of the vote (10.3% in
Calabria, 9.0% in Lazio, 8.9% in
Apulia, and 8.4% in
Basilicata) and five MEPs. For the
2022 Italian presidential election on 24–29 January, FdI voted
Carlo Nordio when all the other main parties proposed a re-election of incumbent president
Sergio Mattarella. In April 2022, the party organised a large convention in
Milan, to discuss its political program and start the campaign for the next general election.
Road to the 2022 general election , Tuscany, three days before the 2022 general election; on the right
Claudio Borghi Aquilini (League) Heading into the
2022 Italian general election rising in the polls, a
snap election that was called after the
2022 Italian government crisis, it was agreed among the centre-right coalition that the leader of the party receiving the most votes would become prime minister candidate. As of July 2022, FdI was first party in the coalition according to opinion polling, and she was widely expected to become
Prime Minister of Italy if the centre-right coalition obtained an
absolute majority in Parliament, which would be the most right-wing government in the
history of the Italian Republic according to some academics. In an attempt to moderate the party to placate fears among those who describe FdI as
neo-fascist or
far-right, including fears within the
European Commission that she could lead Italy towards Hungary under
Viktor Orbán, Meloni told the foreign press that
Italian fascism is history. As president of the
European Conservatives and Reformists Party, she said she shared the experiences and values of the
Conservative Party in the United Kingdom,
Likud in Israel, and the
Republican Party in the United States.
2022 general election and aftermath accepting the task of forming a
new government In the run-up to the election, several politicians previously affiliated with Berlusconi's FI joined the FdI electoral lists. Notably, they included
Giulio Tremonti (ex-
PSI and ex-FI, former finance minister),
Marcello Pera (ex-PSI and ex-FI, former president of the Senate),
Antonio Guidi (ex-PSI and ex-FI, former family and social solidarity minister),
Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata (former foreign affairs minister, honorary president of the
PRT),
Carlo Nordio (former prosecutor, member of the
PLI), and
Eugenia Roccella (a former
Radical and feminist who later turned into a
conservative feminist), among others. General election candidate
Calogero Pisano was sacked after praising
Adolf Hitler. While he remained a candidate, FdI removed its symbol from his candidature; he was elected in the single-district constituency of
Agrigento, Sicilia with 37.8% of the vote. In one of Rome's single-seat constituencies,
Ester Mieli, a former spokesperson of the local Jewish community and granddaughter of a
Holocaust survivor, was elected with 37.5% of the vote. In a record-low
voter turnout election,
exit polls projected that the centre-right coalition would win a majority of seats in the 2022 general election. Meloni was projected to be the winner of the election with FdI receiving a plurality of seats, and per agreement with the centre-right coalition, which held that the largest party in the coalition would nominate the next prime minister, she is the favourite to become Prime Minister and would be the country's first woman to hold the office. On 13 October, the new parliamentary term started and FdI's La Russa was elected
President of the Senate of the Republic; he is the first politician with a neo-fascist background and to come from a
post-fascist party to hold the position, which is the second highest-ranking office of the Italian Republic. After customary talks among the parties and the president,
Sergio Mattarella, as part of the
2022 Italian government formation on 20–21 October, Meloni accepted the task of forming a new government and announced the
Meloni government, which assumed official functions after each ministers were sworn in on 22 October. It was variously described as a shift to the
political right, and the first
far-right-led coalition, as well as its first far-right leader, since the Second World War. Other than Meloni, the government included 9 FdI ministers, notably including Nordio at Justice, Crosetto at Defense, and Urso at Economic Development. During the annual party convention, named after
Michael Ende's character
Atreju, which took place in December 2023, international guests included British Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak, Albanian Prime Minister
Edi Rama, Spanish right-wing leader
Santiago Abascal and businessman
Elon Musk. In the
2024 European Parliament election, Meloni led the party in all five constituencies, after presenting the event as a vote of confidence on her leadership and government. Differently from other parties, FdI privileged party stalwarts over signature candidates. A rare exception was the inclusion of
Vittorio Sgarbi, whose candidacy would not succeed. FdI came in first place in the election, winning 28.9% of the vote and 24 seats, ahead of the PD and centre-right coalition partners. Meloni, who was a candidate in all five constituencies, received 2.3 million preferences votes and was the most voted individual in the election. The second most voted candidate in the party was
Nicola Procaccini, outgoing chairman of the
European Conservatives and Reformists group. In September 2024, FdI was admitted into the
International Democracy Union. == Ideology and factions ==