Italy Looks to a Post-Fascist Radical to Lead

Giorgia Meloni, a 45-year-old firebrand with scant experience in government, is widely expected to become Italy’s first female leader after elections Sunday that are likely to deliver a strong majority to a right-wing coalition.

Investors have taken her reassuring statements — on Italy’s precarious public finances, on its role in the European Union, on continued support for Ukraine — at face value. The cost of Italian debt has hardly changed in response to the prospect of Meloni replacing Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, as prime minister.