Far-right party ousts coalition in regional Italian election

RIGHT-WING parties triumphed in a regional election in Italy yesterday in a contest seen as a bellwether for the European Parliament elections in May.

A candidate from Brothers of Italy, a small far-right party backed by the Right-wing League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, won the election in the mountainous Abruzzo region. After taking around 48per cent of the vote, Marco Marsilio was elected as governor of the region, ousting a centre-left coalition.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which governs with the League at the national level, performed dismally, winning just 20per cent of the vote – half of what it garnered in the region in last year’s general election.

The result will inflame worries within Five Star that it has been eclipsed since forming a coalition with Matteo Salvini’s League last June. Since then, the pugnacious interior minister has doubled his party’s support, while that of Five Star has declined.

There is speculation that Mr Salvini might choose to ditch Five Star, engineer an election and form a Right-wing coalition, especially if his party performs strongly in the European polls.

He dismissed any idea of radical change yesterday, saying that the composition of the coalition would not alter. “Nothing changes for the government – no reshuffle. Work continues,” said Mr Salvini, whose popularity surged after he closed Italian ports to migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean.

The minister also weighed in on Italy’s popular Sanremo music festival, criticising the winner – a 27-year-old Italian singer called Alessandro Mahmood, whose father is Egyptian.

Mr Salvini said he would rather the festival, which is watched by 10million television viewers, was won by a singer called Ultimo, whose real name is Niccolò Moriconi – a comment interpreted as an attack on multiculturalism.