Soumahoro, originally from the Ivory Coast, is the only person of African descent in the Italian parliament. His dress code on the day parliament resumed was to draw attention to the many battles he had fought to highlight the plights of workers, especially immigrants.
Soumahoro becomes the only bright light in the aftermath of an election which the far right party Fratelli d’Italia, FdI won. He has been fighting for years to raise the wages and improve the working and living conditions of the migrant workers who pick most of Italy’s crops, especially in the poorer south of the country.
In a tweet he declared, “I’m wearing these wellington boots, a symbol of the suffering and hopes of the real Italy that enters parliament with me in order to legislate, in memory of those who have died of over-work, those who are discriminated against and those who are hungry, with our feet in the mud of reality and our spirits in the sky of hope.”
Meanwhile, Giorgia Melon, FdI leader who is set to become Italy’s first female Prime Minister has been trying to douse fears, especially in the international community about her party’s link to Italy’s Facist history. The EU said it would carefully monitor the government to be formed by Melon who has been talking tough at the block. She said in one interview just before the election that, “there is nobody all over the world who needs to be afraid of us.”
A strong anti-immigrant stance which is a cornerstone of Meloni’s manifesto, is now a source of worry in the immigrant community in Italy. Before the election she called for a naval blockade of Africa’s Mediterranean coast to stop migrants from reaching Italy. In the past she alluded to the “Great Replacement” theory, a conspiracy suggesting that global elites want to substitute Europeans with immigrants.
In Italy where government comes and goes at the speed of lightening, it remains to be seen how the tough talking Meloni would revive Italy’s economy that had stagnated for years with youth unemployment. Perhaps, she would do well to learn a lesson or two from her coalition partner Matteo Salvini who was full of sound and fury but lasted just about18 months with former ally the 5 Star Movement, M5S, at the helm.
Already there seems a crack in the coalition that is propelling Meloni to power. One of the coalition partners, former Premier and leader of Forza Italia, FI, Silvio Berlusconi has dubbed Meloni arrogant. Berlusconi in a note published by the daily La Repubblica, described Meloni as, “presumptuous, over-bearing, arrogant and offensive.”
