(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 14 - The League's Lorenzo Fontana, one of the deputies to party leader Matteo Salvini, was elected Speaker of the Lower House on Friday.
    The 42-year-old former family and disabilities minister and ex-EU affairs minister prevailed in the fourth round of voting, when the threshold of MPs' votes needed went down from two-thirds to a simple majority.
    He got 222 votes, comfortably over the 197 needed.
    "I thank those who voted and those who did not," Fontana said.
    "It will be my honour to preside over parliament".
    He dedicated his first comments as Speaker to Pope Francis, describing him as a "spiritual point of reference for the majority of Italian citizens.
    "The pope is carrying out an unequaled diplomatic effort for peace," he added.
    Fontana also quoted blessed Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Monza boy who died of leukemia in 2006 and was beatified by Pope Francis two years ago, as saying "be your original self and not a photocopy".
    A conservative Catholic, critics have accused Fontana of being against LGBT+ rights and abortion, and of being sympathetic to Russia.
    He has lent his support to a controversial pro-life Family Day in Italy.
    In 2016 he sent his best wishes to Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.
    During the voting on Friday, Rachele Scarpa and Alessandro Zan, lawmakers for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), held up a large banner that read: "No to a homophobic, pro-Putin Speaker".
    In his speech, however, Fontana stressed the value of diversity.
    "The House represents the diverse choices of the citizens," he said.
    "Our nation is a many-sided one, with different historic and regional realities that formed it and made it great.
    "Italy's greatness is diversity".
    Friday's vote lacked the drama of Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa's election on Thursday.
    La Russa, the co-founder of likely next premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, prevailed even though FdI's centre-right allies in Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) did not vote for him.
    Berlusconi said this move was linked to "unease" about vetoes imposed in the negotiations for the formation of the new government, but La Russa was elected anyway thanks to votes from some members of opposition parties.
    Berlusconi backed away Friday from a reported threat to go to President Sergio Mattarella's governent-formation consultations alone, while the League put forward outgoing industry minister Giancarlo Giorgetti for the key post of interior minister tasked with facing an energy crisis and looming recession.
    "We are moving forward at pace," said Meloni after the House Speaker's election.
    "I'm happy and I congratulate Fontana".
    PD leader Enrico Letta said the election was a "slap in the face for the country" while another senior PD figure, Senator Andrea Martella, said "the right has shown its real essence: nationalist, divisive and obscurantist".
    Arcigay recalled Fontana's organization of the World Family Conference in 2018, a platform for "dozens of members of ultraconservative, homophobic and misogynistic movements." It said "Fontana has always taken Putin's Russia as a political and cultural model and has distinguished himself for some of the crudest proposals in Italian history such as abolishing the Mancini Law against racial and religious discrimination".
    Centre right gay gay group GayLib voiced the hope that Fontana would rethink his opposition to non-traditional families.
    (ANSA).