Italy’s leading party suspends candidate for praising Hitler

ROME (Reuters) – The Brothers of Italy party, considered the favorite for this weekend’s national elections, suspended one of its candidates on Tuesday after it emerged that he had praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in online posts.

The roots of the Brothers of Italy go back to a neo-fascist group founded after World War II. However, its leader Giorgia Meloni, who is expected to become Italy’s next prime minister, tries to distance herself from the far right and describes her party as a mainstream conservative.

However, critics say there are still many fascist sympathizers in the party’s ranks, and the daily newspaper La Repubblica this week published a social media comment posted eight years ago by party candidate Calogero Pisano in which he praised Hitler as a “great statesman.”

Pisano, who ran for election on the island of Sicily, also praised someone in a 2016 post for calling Meloni a “modern fascist” and wrote that the brothers of Italy had “never hidden their true ideals.”

The appearance of the posts sparked anger among Italy’s Jews. “The idea that those who praise Hitler can sit in the next parliament is unacceptable,” Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish community in Rome, wrote on Twitter.

In response to the controversy, the Brothers of Italy party announced it would suspend Pisano with immediate effect. “From this moment on, Pisano no longer represents (the party) at any level,” it said in a statement.

Pisano himself apologized. “Years ago I wrote things that were deeply wrong,” he said on Facebook, adding that he had deleted the posts some time ago.

The Brothers of Italy are widely expected to emerge from the September 25 election as Italy’s largest single party, leading an alliance of right-wing parties to a comfortable victory.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Susan Fenton)