Meloni's Record-Long Government Faces a New Threat from Its Right Flank
Giorgia Meloni's government has become the longest-running Italian administration since the Second World War, a milestone the prime minister planned to celebrate at a festival-style showcase in the port area of Bari, Puglia, expected to draw roughly 10,000 supporters bussed in from across the country (The Guardian). Militants from the youth wing of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party distributed flyers in Bari promoting the event, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan 'Il Governo più stabile, l'Italia più forte' — the most stable government, the strongest Italy (The Guardian). Meloni planned to address the Bari audience flanked by her coalition allies Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, and Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia (The Guardian).
The contrast between a durability celebration and a backdrop of coalition erosion captures the central tension in Italian politics heading toward the 2027 general election. Brothers of Italy remains the country's biggest party (The Guardian), but the conservative bloc underpinning Meloni's government now faces an insistent challenger from its right flank. A few weeks before the Bari event, Meloni was booed at the opening ceremony of the Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Puglia (The Guardian), a localized signal that the public mood in the region is not uniformly celebratory.
Roberto Vannacci, a former army general, launched the far-right party Futuro Nazionale in February 2026 (The Guardian). Reuters reported that Futuro Nazionale has become Italy's fourth-most-popular political force (Reuters). According to the average of Italian polls, the party rose by 0.6 percentage points in August 2026 to reach 7.4 percent support (Pagella Politica). Polling institute Mannheimmer placed Futuro Nazionale between 7 and 8 percent in September 2026 (La7). In a poll reported in late August 2026, Forza Italia fell to 7.1 percent while Futuro Nazionale rose to 7.5 percent (Affaritaliani). The trajectory has been steep and consistent: in July, Futuro Nazionale rose 1.5 percentage points from 5.3 to 6.8 percent (Pagella Politica), and a YouTrend poll conducted for SkyTG24 in late July put the party at 7.6 percent, up 1.2 points over the previous three weeks (Il Fatto Quotidiano). Vannacci announced that Futuro Nazionale has surpassed 130,000 registered party members (X / Roberto Vannacci).
Vannacci first entered the public eye in 2023 after self-publishing a book described as filled with racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism (The Guardian). The backlash cost him his army job but propelled the book to the top of bestseller lists. Vannacci has credited a newspaper putting his face on its front page on 17 August 2023 as the reason Futuro Nazionale exists today (X / Roberto Vannacci). In 2024, he was elected as an MEP — a member of the European Parliament — for the League before leaving Salvini's party to establish his own (The Guardian).
Futuro Nazionale's manifesto stakes out positions well beyond the mainstream of Meloni's coalition. It stated that 'abortion is not a right' and called for gay people to be banned from television between 6 am and 11 pm to avoid exposing children to what it described as 'homosexualist' content (The Guardian). The manifesto proposed introducing military education in high schools and a 'remigration' plan — a term used by far-right movements for the mass removal of immigrants — to remove irregular immigrants and foreign nationals who commit crimes (The Guardian). Vannacci has pledged mass deportations and a crackdown on crime as part of the party's platform (Reuters.
On foreign policy, Vannacci campaigned to stop weapons and financial aid to Ukraine, saying that if he could choose between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy he would choose Putin (The Guardian). That posture places him at odds with Meloni's government, which has maintained a steadfastly Atlanticist — meaning pro-NATO and pro-Western alliance — and pro-Kyiv line.
The broader context here is what the Vannacci phenomenon means for the 2027 election cycle. Futuro Nazionale has already eclipsed both the League and Forza Italia in the polls, the two junior partners whose support Meloni needs to govern. If Vannacci's party consolidates its position as the fourth-largest force, it could siphon votes from the broader coalition, potentially denying Meloni's alliance the parliamentary majority it secured in 2022. The critical variable is whether Futuro Nazionale ultimately runs independently, drawing votes away from the center-right bloc, or positions itself as a coalition partner demanding significant policy concessions. Either scenario would pressure Meloni to shift rightward on issues like immigration, social policy, and EU alignment. The Bari rally, with its choreography of coalition unity, is designed to project stability. The polling trajectory of Futuro Nazionale tells a different story.
