The Government of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, faces tomorrow and Monday its first electoral test almost four months after coming to power, with elections in the two most important regions of the country, Lazio (in the center) and Lombardy (to the north), those of Rome and Milan.
The polls will be open tomorrow, Sunday, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and on Monday from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. renew the presidencies of these key regions, those of Rome, political capital, and Milan, economic motor of the country.
The importance of the elections, to which 13 million voters have been called, lies in what they will be a first test for the far-right Giorgia Meloni, who has governed since October along with Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini. Although polls have allowed the right-wing coalition to sleep peacefully Until now, then, according to his predictions, he would not only keep Lombardy but also conquer Lazio, governed by the center-left since 2013.
[Tras 100 días de Meloni, Italia se parece cada vez más a Polonia]
These conservative winds have been fostered by the failure to carry out the “broad field progressive“, that is, the failed union of center-left forces, such as the Democratic Party (PD), the 5-Star Movement (M5S) and the Third Pole.
“The center right It is only compact in electoral appointments, but their conflicts are evident”, has reproached the leader of the M5S and former prime minister, Giuseppe Conte.
In Lombardy, the right-wing coalition, made up of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, will jointly support the re-election of outgoing president Attilio Fontana, who among other things managed the pandemic when the region became the first western focus of the coronavirus.
The PD and the M5S did agree on a common candidate, Pierfrancesco Majorino, former councilor for Social Policies in Milan, but the centrist Terzo Polo will support Letizia Moratti, former Berlusconi dauphine and regional vice president until 2022 he abandoned the right to launch his candidacy.
division between parties
In Lazio, the conservatives will once again appear seamlessly united in support of the former president of the Italian Red Cross Francesco Rocca, while the division between the parties of the center-left will be even greater than in the other region.
And it is that the PD and the M5S have finished proposing different candidates: the Minister of Health, Alessio D’Amato, and the journalist Donatella Bianchi. A poll by the Ipsos Institute on February 8 granted re-election to Fontana in Lombardy with 45% of the vote and gave Lazio to Rocca with 45.3% and, furthermore, revalidated the primacy of Meloni’s party on the Italian right.
But it also worries probable low turnout, although an attempt will be made to tackle this two-day electoral call.
Berlusconi, who at 86 usually speaks from his mansions on special occasions, has predicted the conquest of the two regions “most important in Italy” and has called for a vote because a victory for the right-wing coalition “would give the government a great boost”.
[La ultraderechista Meloni hace historia y gobernará Italia gracias al hastío y la baja participación]
An Executive that, among other things, has rushed to approve a reform that, at the end of a long and tortuous parliamentary procedure, should introduce the so-called “differentiated autonomy“, that is, granting important powers to the regions, a wish longed for by the north of the country, Salvini’s fiefdom.
In this scenario, the main centre-left party, the PD, finds itself in full refoundation after the electoral bump in September and with its internal factions revolting again in support of the candidates who will compete for its leadership in primaries on February 26.
But with the intention of shaking off the dust and standing up to the right already in the 2024 European Parliament elections.
Filed under Giorgia Meloni, Italy, Milan, Rome
