Ballot box bottleneck
As Italy votes, Europe fears populist, euroskeptic gains
Italians braved long lines and confusing ballots to vote Sunday in one of the most uncertain elections in years — one that could determine if the country succumbs to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe.
Some Italian polling stations faced ballot delivery problems and all had new time-consuming anti-fraud measures in place that created bottlenecks at many stations. As the day wore on, authorities in Milan and Rome urged voters to give themselves plenty of time to cast their ballots and not wait until the last minute.
“You feel as if you have gone there prepared, but it’s not that clear,” Sister Vincenza complained as she cast her ballot on Rome’s Aventine hill before heading to Mass.
Some polling stations remained closed in Palermo two hours into election day because the wrong ballots were delivered and 200,000 new ones had to be reprinted overnight. Similar ballot glitches were reported elsewhere, forcing the suspension of the vote in two towns in Alessandria.
More than 46 million people were eligible to vote, including Italians abroad who already mailed in their ballots. Exit polls were expected after polls closed at 11 p.m., projections sometime thereafter and consolidated results today.
Italy’s political scene is dominated by three main blocs — the centre-right coalition anchored by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the ruling centre-left coalition anchored by the Democratic Party and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.
The campaign itself was marked by neo-fascist rhetoric and antimigrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month against six Africans. While the centre-right coalition that capitalized
on Italy’s anti-migrant sentiment led the polls, analysts predicted the likeliest outcome of Sunday’s vote was a hung parliament.
With unemployment at 10.8 per cent and economic growth in the eurozone’s third-largest economy lagging the average, many Italians have all but given up hope for change. Polls indicated a third hadn’t decided or weren’t even sure they would vote.
“The situation is pretty bad,” said Paolo Mercorillo from Ragusa, Sicily, who said he would not even bother casting a ballot. “There aren’t candidates who are valid enough.”
The populist 5-Star Movement hoped to capitalize on such disgust, particularly among Italy’s
young. Polls indicated the grassroots movement launched in 2009 by comic Beppe Grillo would be the largest vote-getter among any single party. But the 5-Stars weren’t expected to win enough to govern on their own, and they have sworn off forming coalitions. Still, the movement’s leader, 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, has recently suggested he would be open to talking with potential allies.
Analysts predicted the only coalition with a shot of reaching an absolute majority is the centre-right, which aside from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia includes the anti-migrant League and the nationalistic, neofascist-rooted Brothers of Italy party.
A topless Femen activist con-
fronted Berlusconi on Sunday, jumping on a table as he was about to hand in his ballot and displaying “Berlusconi, you’ve expired” on her bare torso.
Berlusconi, 81, turned away and was escorted out. He can’t run for office because of a tax fraud conviction but he has tapped European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, considered a proEuropean moderate, as his pick if the centre-right is asked to form a government.
League leader Matteo Salvini is also gunning for the top job, and some pro-european analysts envisioned a possible “nightmare scenario” of an extremist alliance among the 5-Stars, the League and the Brothers of Italy.