Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, a 50-year-old former submariner, will run as a candidate for the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party, Rome newspaper Il Messaggero reported.
“So many people want to put Mussolini on the ballot,” the paper quoted him as saying.
If he is successful, Italy will end up with two Mussolinis in the European Parliament.
Caio Giulio Cesare is a cousin of Alessandra Mussolini, the World War II-era dictator’s granddaughter, who has served as a member of the European Parliament since 2014.
Born in Argentina, the latest candidate to carry the Mussolini name has no previous political experience.
However, he seems confident that he is up to the task.
“Obviously I’ve breathed politics my whole life,” he told Il Messaggero.
Mussolini told Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano he is “a post-fascist who refers to those values in a non-ideological way”.
He also said he believes he was chosen as a candidate not for his family name, but for his first three names, originally belonging to another dictator of the Italian peninsula, Julius Caesar.
