Populists strike at old order in Italy
Parties from left, right fringes were favoured
Italian populists of all leanings took a hammer to their country’s old political order in yesterday’s elections, crushing traditional centrist parties in favour of a kaleidoscope of alternatives on the left and right, upending their former system, according to preliminary results.
Voters delivered a hung parliament, casting the euro zone’s third-largest economy into a political gridlock that could take months to clear.
If early projections are confirmed, none of Italy’s three main blocs or groups can rule alone and there is little prospect of a return to mainstream government. Scenarios now include a more euro-sceptic coalition or a even return to the polls.
A rightist alliance of several parties emerged with the biggest bloc of votes, ahead of the anti-establishment FiveStar Movement, which saw its support soar to become the largest single party with 32.3 per cent, according to projections based on early votecounting. The ruling centre-left coalition came third with 18.9 per cent, hurt by anger over growing poverty, high unemployment and mass immigration.
Within the rightist bloc, the League was at 17.7 per cent, well ahead of Silvio Berlusconi’s more moderate Forza Italia with 13.3 per cent, suggesting its pledge of zero tolerance on immigration and tough anti-EU rhetoric had resonated with voters.
The centre-right was seen as winning 37.3 per cent in the Senate, short of the 40 per cent analysts believe is needed for a working majority.
A prolonged political stalemate could make heavily indebted Italy the focus of market concern in Europe, now that the threat of German instability has receded after the revival on Sunday night of a grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The election drew the attention of anti-establishment crusaders from around the world, who saw the roiling populist energy of the campaign as a harbinger for other European nations. Formerly fringe ideas, such as deporting 600,000 migrants who have come to Italy without proper papers in recent years, have entered the mainstream.
The election captured some of the angry energy that has swirled elsewhere in Europe and the United States. French voters last year rejected traditional parties in the first round of their presidential elections, then elected Emmanuel Macron, a selfdescribed “radical centrist,” over his far-right opponent. In Germany, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany in September elections sapped strength from centrist leaders and forced the country into political paralysis that finally ended with the coalition agreement between the battered old-line parties.
But the Italian election appeared to push the atomisation of political forces one step further. The Five-Star Movement has never held national leadership positions and has shunned alliances in the past.
“We are in a transition, and we don’t know where it will lead,” said Giovanni Orsina of Luiss-Guido Carli University in Rome. “The cards are being distributed for the reshuffle of the political system.”