Exit poll gives centre-right bloc the edge in Italy vote
ITALY: A centre-right coalition had a slight edge over an antiestablishment party in Italy’s election yesterday, an exit poll by RAI state TV found.
The same poll found former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi duelling for the centre-right’s leadership with anti-migrant party leader Matteo Salvini; their respective Forza Italia and League parties were running nearly neckand-neck.
Whichever party dominates the coalition would be better poised to make a bid for the premiership should the coalition muster enough support in Parliament to support a government.
But no party alone was taking enough seats to govern alone, the exit poll by the Piepoli polling agency found.
The exit poll put the centreright-coalition, which includes a smaller far-right party, with 33 per cent to 36 per cent of the vote, compared with the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement’s 29.5 per cent to
32.5 per cent.
The centre-left coalition that currently governs Italy and led by the Democratic Party was lagging at 24.5 per cent to 27.5 per cent, according to the exit poll. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent.
The first projections based on an initial vote count were expected early today. How the actual votes stack up could determine if Italy is swept up in the euroskeptic and far-Right sentiment that has emerged in much of Europe.
The campaigning in Italy was marked by neo-fascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month that targeted African migrants and injured six.
But the 5-Star Movement’s principle of not allying with any party its supporters consider themselves part of a non-party - could complicate deal-making to form a new government if Salvini’s populistleaning League ends up seeking a partner that’s not Berlusconi’s more moderate party.
Hedging his bets, the 5-Stars’ candidate for premier, 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, has shown some openness to potential partners.
With Salvini gunning for the premiership himself, some proEuropean analysts envisioned a possible ‘‘nightmare scenario’' of an extremist alliance among the 5-Stars, the League and the rightwing Brothers of Italy.
Steve Bannon, the right-wing populist architect of Donald Trump’s White House campaign, was in Rome at the weekend, cheering on the populists. ‘‘I think if they create a coalition among all the populists it would be fantastic, it would terrify Brussels and pierce it in its heart,’' Bannon was quoted as saying in Sunday’s
newspaper. With polls showing the centreleft trailing, Democratic leader Matteo Renzi and the current premier, Paolo Gentiloni, spent the final days of the campaign warning