Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends her party to celebrate one year of governing Italy with just a video message after a scandal involving her partner made waves in the news.
Celebrating a year of government with Matteo Salvini’s Lega (ID) and Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia (EPP), Meloni made a five-minute video message that she recorded in Cairo, where she was attending an international conference on the Middle East crisis, the night before she travelled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I am proud of what we have done, of us, of our ruling class, and of myself. I can look in the mirror and still see the same person. I always walked tall and did not compromise”, Meloni said.
The speeches from the stage included no shortage of attacks on “big newspapers” and enemies on the left, whose methods to weaken the centre-right reached “unprecedented heights” and who nevertheless failed in their intent to divide the three parties of the governing majority, according to Fratelli d’Italia.
Meloni did not attend the event in person after she announced on social media that she was separating from her partner and Mediaset journalist Andrea Giambruno. He has been implicated in videos where it appears he made advances and inappropriate remarks to female colleagues.
Striscia La Notizia aired the videos on Channel 5, one of the three networks of Mediaset’s media empire. The airing of compromising videos involving Meloni’s partner has also raised eyebrows over the relationship between Meloni and the Berlusconi family, who owns the broadcaster.
“I’m sorry I’m not there, but I, too am a human being. I ask for understanding,” Meloni said.
After the death of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, his empire was divided among his sons and daughters.
Mediaset is in the hands of his second son, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, who, despite having never entered into politics, many have suggested as Silvio’s political heir.
His first daughter, Marina Berlusconi, takes care of politics, particularly Forza Italia, the party Berlusconi founded in 1994.
(Federica Pascale | Euractiv.it)
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