Giorgia Meloni, who is set to become Italy's first far-right leader since World War II, said she wants to "enhance what unites" people in the country, rather than what divides them, after her alliance won parliamentary elections at the weekend.
"The Italians have entrusted us with an important task. Now it is our job to not let them down and do our utmost to restore dignity and pride to the nation," she wrote on Twitter.
Meloni is set to lead a right-wing coalition into power as her alliance secured an absolute majority of seats in both houses of parliament, the Ministry of Interior confirmed on Monday.
According to the figures, Meloni's Brothers of Italy and its partners - the right-wing populist Lega and the conservative Forza Italia - have taken 112 of 200 seats in the Senate and 235 of the 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
"Today we made history," Meloni tweeted earlier.
She is now set to become the first female prime minister in Italian history once the alliance agrees on a governing coalition and receives the mandate to govern from President Sergio Mattarella.
Coalition negotiations can only begin once the new parliament has started work in mid-October.
The centre-left alliance led by the Social Democrats, the Five Star Movement and The Alliance of the Centre were unable to stop their opponents, which went into Sunday's election with more momentum.
"Meloni takes Italy," read Monday's banner headline on the liberal daily La Repubblica.
Meloni spoke of a "night of pride" and basked in congratulations from right-wing party colleagues across Europe including French nationalist Marine Le Pen, the leadership of Germany's far-right AfD and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
A government with the 45-year-old at the helm is expected to take action against Mediterranean migrants as well as fight against and renegotiate the conditions of the Covid-19 reconstruction fund in Brussels. On the campaign trail, Meloni also promised tax cuts.
The head of Italy's Social Democrats (PD), Enrico Letta, on Monday said he is resigning in the wake of his party's loss.
The former prime minister said that he would not stand as a candidate for the post of general secretary at his Democratic Party's next congress.
Letta spoke of "a sad day for Italy" and said it was now the task of a new generation to form a strong opposition.
Jürgen Hardt, a lawmaker and foreign policy expert for the conservative CDU - currently in opposition - said he was troubled by the "openly post-fascist statements" of Meloni.
Omid Nouripour, the co-leader of the Greens, Germany's other junior coalition partner, described the election results in Italy as "worrying."
The government of German Chancellor Olafd Scholz adopted a more neutral stance. Italy is a Europe-friendly country, said deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner. "And we assume that this will not change."
Polish President Andrzej Duda rejected criticism in EU capitals of the right-wing victory.
"How much sense of superiority, arrogance and contempt for democratic rules one must have to speak about the result of another country's elections," Duda wrote on Twitter
