Italy polls get messy

DEALS: COALITION TALKS POWER SHARING Various scenarios can unfold after election day on Sunday.

Italians are used to living with political uncertainty, thanks to the more than 60 governments it has piled through since the republic was established after the second World War.

The country heads to the polls on Sunday to elect its representatives in the lower house Chamber of Deputies and upper house Senate.

But with a complicated new electoral law that mixes proportional representation with first-past-thepost, the country could wake up on Monday to a variety of scenarios.

“It is unlikely that any of the three main contenders will be able to obtain a majority, but there is only one that can, and it’s the right,” says Roberto D’Alimonte, director of the political science department of Rome’s Luiss University.

The right-wing coalition brings together four parties, the biggest of which are Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia (FI) and the far-right League.

An agreement between Berlusconi and League leader Matteo Salvini says that whoever comes first will lead the government, should the coalition win a majority.

Banned from public office thanks to a tax fraud investigation, Berlusconi has said in that scenario, and with FI the bigger of the two main parties, he would like to see Antonio Tajani lead. But Tajani has not yet said whether he is ready to give up the presidency of the European Parliament.

If the League comes out on top, Salvini will be premier, assuming that Berlusconi keeps his word.

Brussels is betting on a German-style grand coalition between FI and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), both pro-EU parties.

Neither Berlusconi nor PD leader Matteo Renzi have dared suggest that they might enter into an agreement, but that is what happened after the last general election in 2013.

The website Votewatch Europe notes that FI’s representatives in the European Parliament have voted with the PD 76% of the time, but only 36% with the League. – AFP