Italy’s right-wing alliance sweeps polls with election triumph in former left-wing stronghold
- Far-right leader and former interior minister Matteo Salvini had vowed to wrest Umbria, a hilly region prized for its truffles and prosciutto, from the left
- He said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s ‘days are numbered’ as he eyes a series of key regional votes that he hopes will sweep him back to power
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Firebrand Matteo Salvini had vowed to wrest Umbria, a hilly region prized for its truffles and prosciutto, from the left in the first of several key regional elections he hopes will sweep him back to power.
Salvini said the results of Sunday’s vote were “extraordinary”, expressing his “joy and emotion” after the right’s candidate Donatella Tesei won with more than 57 per cent, compared to 37 per cent for the coalition government’s candidate.
It was Salvini’s anti-immigrant League party that had swept the board, bringing home 37 per cent of the vote alone in a region which has voted left for 70 years but has been hit hard by the economic crisis.
The former interior minister’s campaign trail allies – the smaller, far-right Brothers of Italy, and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia – respectively won 10 per cent and 5.8 per cent.
The government coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and centre-left Democratic Party (PD) – former foes – had joined forces for the regional vote in a bid to beat Salvini, but came up short.
The PD won 22 per cent but the M5S took home just 7.4 per cent – a pitiful result which shook the party to its core.
Salvini said the “days are numbered” for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the PD and M5S leaders. The right accuses them of betraying Italians by forming an alliance to prevent the country from heading to elections they would likely lose.
“The centre-right has the right and duty to govern the country,” Berlusconi said after the Umbria win, while Brothers of Italy head Giorgia Meloni said “if I was Conte, I’d hand in my resignation faster than light”.
Political analysts had said a poor result for the M5S could spark an internal rebellion within the movement by those who were against the tie-up with the hated PD on a national level, or those who want their leader Luigi Di Maio gone.
“The implosion or endurance of the M5S worries the PD a lot,” political commentator Ilario Lombardo said in the Stampa daily, warning the fallout would be “deeply wounding”.
The region was already suffering from the economic crisis, which hit historic companies like chocolate maker Perugina hard, while Umbria’s biggest factory, the Terni steelworks, has struggled for years and periodically risks closure.
The Democratic Party acknowledged it had also been hampered by a health sector scandal: Umbria governor and PD member Catiuscia Marini quit in April following an investigation into competitive exams for the hiring of hospital staff.
It said a tie-up with the PD at other regional votes was now in question but brushed off suggestions the coalition government could be brought down by the Umbria loss.
“It’s difficult to foresee if and to what extent the ‘Umbrian syndrome’ will eat away at the government alliance,” political commentator Massimo Franco said in the Corriere della Sera daily on Monday.
“In the meantime, the defeat has scuppered the hypothesis of extending deals with the left to other regions or cities,” he said.
