In Giorgia Meloni’s busy 2026 calendar, September 4 is a day of special significance. That will be the day Italy’s first female prime minister, if still in office, surpasses the late Silvio Berlusconi’s record for the longest continuous term in office since the second world war.
Such political endurance would be no small achievement in a country that has had 68 governments — lasting on average just over a year — since its republic was born in 1946. Meloni’s own election, in September 2022, followed the collapse of a technocratic national unity government led by Mario Draghi, the respected former European Central Bank president.
Few foresaw at the time that the fiery former opposition leader — whose Brothers of Italy party is rooted in postwar neo-fascism — would preside over Italy’s longest period of political calm in decades. Less surprising is that Meloni and her allies routinely trumpet their administration’s stability.