Brothers of Italy: once-fringe far-right party plots local elections success

Giorgia Meloni's party hopes to gain ground as Italians go to polls to elect mayors and councillors

Just five years ago, Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist origins, barely scraped 4% of the vote. It now leads in opinion polls, and its leader Giorgia Meloni's rabble-rousing speeches have filled squares up and down Italy before local elections beginning on Sunday.

Italians will elect mayors and councillors in roughly 1,000 towns and cities, including Genoa, Palermo, Verona, Parma and a host of provincial capitals, in a vote that will test the strength of political parties before national elections next year.