From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Veteran far-right figure who collects fascist memorabilia chosen as head of Italy’s senate
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ROME — Ignazio La Russa, who was elected speaker of the Italian senate today, is a veteran of the far-right who collects fascist memorabilia as a hobby.
The 75-year-old co-founded the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party with Giorgia Meloni, whose victory in elections last month put her on course to become prime minister.
As speaker, La Russa now has the role of guiding legislation through parliament’s upper house, but is also expected to wield power behind the scenes.
Meloni hailed him as a “patriot, a servant of the state” who for her party “is an irreplaceable point of reference, a friend, a brother, an example for generations of activists and leaders.”
La Russa has been a part of the nationalist Italian right since the end of the 1960s, when his long hair and beard prompted writer Umberto Eco to compare him to Rasputin.
But politics is also in his blood. His landowner father, Antonino La Russa, was a local official in Sicily for the National Fascist Party of dictator Benito Mussolini.
And after World War II, he was elected MP and then senator for its successor organization, the Italian Social Movement (MSI), set up by Mussolini’s followers.
The Times of Israel Community.