Francesco Meloni, father of Giorgia Meloni, is a figure whose political ambitions crossed borders. He sought a seat in Spain’s Congress of Deputies by joining a candidacy run by a party called Ciudadanos en Blanco during Spain’s general elections in 2008. He appeared as number three on the ballot, a position that placed him among candidates from the Balearic Islands and other regions who hoped to win representation in Spain’s national legislature.
His prospects of securing a national deputy seat were minimal, as reflected by the final vote totals. When the ballots were counted, Ciudadanos en Blanco accumulated 14,193 votes across the regions where it stood, far short of the threshold that would have earned a seat in the Lower House.
At the time Francesco Meloni joined the campaign, he had already faced legal issues related to drug trafficking and had served a prison sentence in Palma after a case involving a cocaine cache. He would not have been eligible to stand for public office while imprisoned, yet he had already completed his sentence by the time he ran as a political candidate.
The appearance of the Meloni name in connection with this candidacy happened during a period when the family, especially Francesco, maintained close ties to Ciudadanos en Blanco. The party, positioning itself as a protest movement with limited electoral backing, aimed to attract votes by presenting independent candidates rather than a traditional party program.
The campaign featured a series of simple videos circulated on social media to spread the message and capture voters’ attention. In those videos, the party’s leadership spoke briefly to the electorate. Among the recordings, one Italian candidate appeared, while the rest of the list consisted of Spanish participants. A foreign observer later commented that Italian politicians could be perceived as untrustworthy, and the statement was echoed with a remark that Spaniards were viewed in a similar light by some observers.
Ciudadanos en Blanco did not secure public representation and remained active at regional and local levels in areas like Mallorca. Throughout the electoral period, Francesco Meloni often appeared on the party’s list, sometimes achieving the highest placement of third on the national slate during the 2008 election. The party did not present a formal platform or policy program and positioned itself as a vehicle for protest against established politicians and policies. Some members noted that they did not personally know all the colleagues on the electoral list and had not met them in person, underscoring the unconventional and sometimes fragmented nature of the campaign dynamic.