In Italy, controversy arose over the high result of Mussolini’s granddaughter in the elections in Rome
Sergey Startsev from RIA Novosti reports with consern from Rome: In the Italian media and social networks, there was a lively discussion around the fact that the granddaughter of the Duce Rachele Mussolini, in the partial administrative elections in Rome on 3-4 October, won the largest number of votes among candidates running for the capital’s city council.
The candidacy of the 47-year-old politician was nominated by the right-wing opposition party “The Brothers of Italy”. Mussolini, who was already a member of the Rome City Council for the previous five years, has won 6,522 votes in this election, more than any other candidate for communal councilors. This fact immediately began to comment on social networks, and mostly in a purely negative way. The general meaning of the criticism was that in no other country in the world this could have happened to the granddaughter of a fascist dictator.
Critical and sometimes very caustic comments appeared in this regard in some local media. “If a party nominates a person named Mussolini, it does so to attract the votes of those who mourn Mussolini. Period,” wrote Massimo Gramellini, a well-known journalist and columnist for the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera.
In response to this criticism, Rachele said that, when voting for her, the Romans were guided not by her name, but by her work for the benefit of the townspeople. In an interview with the newspaper Il Giornale, she stressed that in her party “there is no place for racial hatred, totalitarian tendencies or historical nostalgia.”
However, these words sounded not entirely convincing against the background of a high-profile scandal that erupted in Italy a week ago after an investigative journalism was shown on TV, testifying to the illegal financing of political activities, as well as the racist and anti-Semitic views of one of the prominent functionaries of the Brothers of Italy “, head of the party delegation to the European Parliament, Carlo Fidanza.
The question of who will rule Rome in the next five years will be decided only in the second round of communal elections, which will be held in the Apennines on October 17-18. For the place of mayor of the Eternal City, the candidate of the center-right coalition Enrico Michetti and the nominee of the left forces Roberto Gualtieri, who showed the best results in the first round, will compete.
Mussolini said the controversy surrounding her candidacy should not harm Michetti in the second round, stressing that he could be the “ideal mayor.”
Raquele Mussolini is the daughter of the second marriage of the son of Duce, the famous jazz musician Romano Mussolini. Her half-sister Alessandra Mussolini was also actively involved in political activities. She was elected five times as a member of the national parliament, once as a senator and twice as a European parliamentarian. However, in the 2019 elections to the European Parliament, she was defeated and carried away by dancing. In December last year, Alessandra announced her retirement from her political career, admitting that her participation in the popular TV program “Dancing with the Stars” prompted her to make this decision.
