Sicilians vote in test for national election

PALERMO (Reuters) – Sicilians were voting for a new regional government on Sunday in a ballot seen as a test of national trends ahead of parliamentary elections in the spring.

The contest on the Mediterranean island is expected to be a close race between a resurgent Center-Right and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, with the ruling Center-Left, weakened by internal divisions, in a distant third place.

Bolstered by the return of four-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to the campaign trail, the Center-Right is looking to reclaim its traditional supremacy in Sicily and show that after years of scandals it is again a force to be reckoned with.

It faces tough opposition from 5-Star, which has never won control of an Italian region and hopes victory in Sicily can propel it to success in the national ballot to be held by May at the latest.

The Center-Left, which now heads both the Sicilian and national governments, has succumbed to feuding with leftist rivals – a fratricidal struggle that looks likely to wreck its chances of retaining power on the island.

Sicily is one of Europe’s poorest regions and is notorious in Italy for its bloated public payrolls, wasteful administration, corruption and organized crime.

Unemployment stands at over 22%, twice the national average, and youth unemployment is at 57.2%, compared with some 36% nationally.

Immigration has also been a hot-button issue during the election campaign as the island has become the first port of call for thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya in recent years.

Some 4.5 million Sicilians are eligible to vote for the new governor, with opinion polls pointing to a battle between 5-Star’s Giancarlo Cancelleri and Nello Musumeci at the head of a center-right coalition.

Fabrizio Micari, the candidate of the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) may be challenged by Claudio Fava, backed by a cluster of left-wing parties.

A bad showing for Micari would pile more pressure on PD leader and former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose party has splintered after a raft of local vote setbacks in recent years.

Polls opened at 8 a.m., and at midday the turnout was just 10.8%, down slightly from 11.2% at the same time in the last regional ballot in 2012, when the final tally was a record low of 47%.

5-Star officials said before the vote that a low turnout may hurt them because their loose party structure means they lack the organization and resources to get supporters to the polls.

5-Star, which leads most national opinion polls with about 27% of the vote, just ahead of the PD, has invested most political capital in the Sicily election, with its new leader Luigi Di Maio campaigning hard on the island.