Sawt Falasteen - Italian general challenges Meloni from the right

Roberto Vannacci, 57, last month defected from the far-right League party, a partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's coalition government, and set up a new party he said is "proud of being right-wing".

Opinion polls put the new "National Future" at around three percent support, most of it taken from the League, led by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, but also Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy.

Meloni's party remains the most popular, polling at more than 29 percent support -- more than it won in 2022 elections.

But the general offers "the first movement emerging on the right that isn't aligned with the three main parties," Lorenzo Castellani, professor of politics at Rome's Luiss university, told AFP.

- 'More extremist' -

A career soldier with experience in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Vannacci shot to fame in 2023 with the publication of a controversial book, "The World Upside Down".

In it, he said homosexuality was not "normal", complained about a "dictatorship of minorities", while saying Italian star volleyball player Paola Egonu, who is black, had features that "do not represent Italian-ness".

He was suspended from his army job, with Defence Minister Guido Crosetto -- a member of Meloni's party -- saying that his "personal ramblings... discredit the army, the defence ministry and the constitution".

But in the end, he was allowed to retire, and the controversy made him a celebrity on the far right.

Salvini, whose anti-immigration League has been losing ground to Meloni's in recent years, invited him into his party and Vannacci was elected to the European Parliament in 2024.

But last month the ex-general struck out on his own, taking with him two League MPs and another who was independent but formerly in Meloni's party.

He is targeting voters disenchanted with Salvini and also Meloni, who has radical far-right roots but in office has taken a more pragmatic approach.

National Future is "a party of the true right, pure, sincere, proud, unashamed of being right-wing", and "not hesitant, not fearful", Vannacci told the foreign press association Thursday.

Once a firebrand eurosceptic, Meloni has worked closely with the EU in office, while her flagship promise to cut illegal immigration has been tempered by a major boost in visas for legal migrants.

Vannacci has "a more extremist approach to issues like immigration, like security, where he explicitly talks about remigration", Castellani said.

The ex-general highlights Italy's Roman-Christian roots and has called for migrants to be returned to their countries of origin if they arrived illegally or committed a crime.

While Meloni has distanced herself from Italy's Fascist past, Vannacci was accused of revisionism last year after a social media post defending the democratic credentials of dictator Benito Mussolini.

National sovereignty meanwhile is a priority, with Vannacci lambasting the EU as both overreaching member states' rights and globally ineffective -- not least in the current wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

- A just peace -

Meloni has strongly supported Kyiv in its war with Russia, yet Vannacci opposes further military aid, and says Ukraine and its European allies should accept a peace deal with Russia now.

"A just peace doesn't exist," he told reporters on Thursday.

His position -- and the fact he served as Italy's defence attache in Russia between 2020 and 2022 -- has led to criticism he is too close to Moscow.

He dismissed this on Thursday as a "childish narrative", saying: "I'm not pro-Russia, Putin doesn't pay me... I'm an Italian politician, I look after Italy's interests."

Vannacci's MPs voted against a renewal of military aid to Ukraine last month but also backed a vote of confidence in Meloni's government.

This demonstrates his "strategic ambiguity" about where he will position himself politically, Castellani noted.

General elections are due in 2027, and Vannacci declined to say if he will stand for the Italian parliament. There is a risk that he could further split the right-wing vote, which could help the left.

Or, with no party organisation behind him, he could flounder.

"There's a lot of hype," Castellani said, adding: "Everything remains to be seen."

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST