Giorgia Meloni on Friday celebrates her hard-right government becoming the longest-lasting in Italy's postwar history, with a rally in Bari expected to draw thousands of supporters, while protesters demonstrate nearby.
"Today, our government becomes the longest-serving in the history of the Italian Republic," Meloni wrote on X.
"I welcome this with gratitude and a strong sense of responsibility. Because stability is not a record to be displayed, but the condition that allows a nation to plan, decide, keep its commitments, and be respected," she wrote.
Meloni became Italy's first woman prime minister on October 22, 2022 and has been in charge of the same administration for 1,413 days -- one more than billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi managed -- despite crises within the other parties in her governing coalition.
Italy has had 68 governments in 80 years. Past governments were toppled by crises and defections which Meloni has so far managed to avoid.
Dozens of coaches are transporting supporters to the capital of the southern Puglia region for a shindig thrown by Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, in an area of the port that can host up to 10,000 people, organizers say.
Meloni will address the crowds in the early evening, with her deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani expected to appear via video link for an event that effectively doubles as an election rally ahead of the 2027 vote.
Under the official slogan "Il Governo piu stabile, l’Italia piu forte" ("The Most Stable Government, the Strongest Italy"), festivities will kick off with DJ sets.
Speeches will focus on the government's achievements in just under four years in power, from over one million extra people in employment to a 21-billion-euro ($24-billion) reduction in personal income taxes.
Debt-laden Italy's fiscal stability has greatly improved -- although critics say the stability has failed to translate into growth.
"Have wages increased? No. Petrol costs more, job insecurity has increased, people are retiring less and the healthcare system is functioning less effectively," Maurizio Landini, head of the CGIL trade union, said ahead of the party.
Meloni says Rome's influence on the world stage has grown, despite an early friendship with US President Donald Trump falling spectacularly apart after she chastised him for attacking the pope.
Her coalition -- which includes the far-right, anti-immigrant League and right-wing Forza Italia -- has passed some 300 laws and decrees, the majority tackling "security" threats, from petty criminals to ravers and climate protesters.
The Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, won the 2022 election on a pledge to tackle illegal migration and boasts that its policies have cut migrant arrivals by 80 percent.
But listing accomplishments will not be enough.
Meloni "will also have to say how she intends to use these last months ahead of the vote -- a very interesting question", Flavia Perina, an editorialist with La Stampa daily, told a press conference in Rome on Thursday.
As food trucks serve Bari's traditional "Assassin Spaghetti" -- pasta with a spicy, smoky sauce -- to the party goers, Meloni's critics will be gathering across the city's historic centre for an anti-government demonstration.
Its organizers accuse the government of creating a "war and weapons economy" and a "police state" and of fuelling a climate of hate against migrants.
Such a climate has favoured the rise of a challenger not invited to the celebrations -- former general Roberto Vannacci, whose National Future (FN) party is further to the far right than Meloni's and which has been on a stellar rise that has seen it overtake both the League and Forza Italia in the polls.
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