Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

12 pictures that tell the story of the Italian election campaign

As Italians go to the polls in Sunday's general election, we take a look back at the campaign, and the most striking pictures from the past few months in Italian politics.

Published: 4 March 2018 15:04 CET
Updated: 4 March 2018 20:07 CET
12 pictures that tell the story of the Italian election campaign
A nun hands in her voting paper in the Italian election. Photo: AFP

Back in October, Italy's politicians passed a new electoral law, the piece of legislation that made elections possible.

But not everyone was happy, with the Five Star Movement (M5S) arguing that new rules put them at a disadvantage. They held a protest at Rome's Pantheon wearing blindfolds to show how they felt the law affected them. Pictured are party founder Beppe Grillo and Alessandro Di Battista. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Current prime minister Paolo Gentiloni is pictured delivering his end of the year speech on December 28th, before dissolving parliament.

Though seen by many as a 'caretaker PM' when first appointed in late 2016, Gentiloni has spent longer in office than many an Italian prime minister, and may hold onto the job even longer — an outcome that would please many Italians, since the Democratic Party (PD) politician is regularly ranked as Italy's most popular. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

After the dissolution of parliament, it was time for the campaign to start. Here's an M5S supporter holding a poster with a rather disturbing image showing Matteo Renzi and Silvio Berlusconi's faces morphed into one. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

PD leader Matteo Renzi boared a train saying 'Destination Italy' as he kicked off his campaign back in October. Renzi, once known as 'the scrapper' due to his ambition and sweeping reforms, has been relatively quiet through a campaign dominated by the vocal rightwing. Photo: AFP

This image of Matteo Salvini speaking at a League (formerly Northern League) rally sums up the party's rhetoric. The slogan 'prima gli Italiani' (Italians first) echoes US President Donald Trump. The party also dropped the word ‘north' from their official logo in late December, which features the word ‘Lega' (League) and the new slogan ‘Salvini premier'. Salvini has made no secret of his desire to take the top job, something coalition ally Silvio Berlusconi has repeatedly said will not happen. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The Five Star Movement campaigns on an anti-corruption platform and has had its fair share of embarrassments during the campain, including accusations of plagiarizing its election programme from Wikipedia and rival politicians' speeches, and three of its canddiates being kicked out of the party over links to Freemasonry.

But the biggest scandal was the revelation that its members may have pocketed over €1 million which the party had promised to donate to a small business fund. In the picture above, Di Maio is shown taking a closer look at the paperwork with the crew of TV show Le Iene, which revealed the missing million. Photo: Luigi Di Maio/Facebook

Today in Italian politics: Five Star problems, surreal debates, and a Berlusconi burn

Unlike many European countries, Italy doesn't host official TV debates between the party leaders, but there have been a few, often bizarre, discussions between different party leaders, both on Facebook Live and TV shows. The screengrab above is from La7, where Salvini and President of the Lower House Laura Boldrini took part in a surreal meeting, each holding up pieces of paper with hashtags written on them while the other spoke.

Immigration has been one of the most discussed issues of the election, with Berlusconi's coalition calling for a stop to immigration and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of migrants already in the country.

Anti-migrant group CasaPound, which has neofascist roots, has held rallies across the country, many of which have been met with counter-protests from anti-fascist protesters. A minority of the protests on both sides have turned violent, with dozens of arrests.

Pictured above is a CasaPound rally outside Rome's Pantheon. Photo: AFP

A lot of the campaign coverage focussed on the men leading the country's major parties, but there are several women set to play an important part in Sunday's vote. Above is lawyer and acid attack survivor Lucia Annibali, who will run for the first time as a PD candidate. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Immigration was one of the most-discussed issues ahead of the election. In these posters, the slogan 'vote for me' accompanied pictures of migrants living and working in Sicily.

Silvio Berlusconi portrays himself as the caring 'nonno' of Italy, and his grandfatherly instinct was on display at a coalition rally where he wiped the forehead of junior ally Salvini. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The leaders of the centre-right coalition pictured on March 1st — one of the only times they were all together during the entire campaign. A campaign tactic to visit as much of Italy as possible between them, or a sign of rifts within the bloc? It's hard to know for sure. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

 

POLITICS

‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

Media freedom in Italy has come increasingly under pressure since Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government took office, a group of European NGOs warned on Friday following an urgent fact-finding summit.

Published: 17 May 2024 17:40 CEST
‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

SHOW COMMENTS