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This is Hard Talk with me, Zainab Bedawi.

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Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Zainab Bedawi in Rome.

Being a politician anywhere in Europe is tough, but if you are a left-of-centre woman in frontline politics in Italy,

it can be especially hard. My guest is MP Laura Baldrini, who until last year was Speaker

in the Lower Chamber of the Italian Parliament. She has regularly received many online threats

wishing her dead, tortured or raped.

What does her experience tell us about the current political scene in Italy?

Lara Baldrini here in Rome, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you very much.

So you really had a meteoric rise in politics.

You were only elected to Parliament in 2013 as part of a very small party,

the Ecology Freedom Party. Good. And then literally, 48 hours later, you become speaker of

the lower chamber. How did that? Well, it was a shock. It was unexpected. It was a shock

for me, but for the entire country, basically.

It was the first time that, you know, the speaker, the president, we say, was elected at the second

day with the two days of experience in parliament. It was because, you know, the central

left coalition had the necessity to show new faces the Five Star Movement

entered the Parliament in that election and it was a need to compete with them in terms

of fresh people.

They thought you were a fresh appealing face.

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