As Italy gears up for an early autumn election, its political parties have had no time to waste in forming alliances and putting out their election manifestos.

While dozens of parties have put their names in the running, just a few stand any real chance of success.

Leading in the polls is the ‘centre-right’, or centrodestra, a three-party coalition led by the hard-right Brothers of Italy, along with the populist League, led by Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia. The centre-right is currently polling at around 45 percent, and is expected to win the election outright.

The centre-left, led by the Democratic Party (PD), is expected to take around 32-34 percent of the vote.

The populist anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), running alone, is expected to take around ten percent of the vote.

READ ALSO: Why does Italy have so many political parties?

Finally, an alliance between the centrist party Azione and Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva, referred to as the ‘third pole’, is polling at five percent.

Here are some of the main election promises each of these groups has made so far.

The ‘centre-right’ (centro-destra)

Central to the platform of the centrodesta is a promise to reduce taxes.

While the group’s manifesto is short on specifics, members of the bloc have said they would introduce a universal flat tax of anywhere between 15 percent (Lega’s proposal) and 23 percent (FI’s), effectively extending Italy’s regime forfettario tax scheme for freelancers to all employees. They’ve also proposed raising the salary cap for freelancers on the tax regime from €65,000 to €100,000.

Another vote-winning strategy is a pledge to lower or scrap VAT for basic necessities. Since late July, posters bearing Salvini’s face have appeared all over the country promising to eliminate VAT for bread, pasta, milk, fruit and vegetables.

Proposta della Lega: AZZERARE L’IVA su pane, pasta, latte, frutta e verdura.
I soldi ci sono, manca la volontà di farlo.
Noi insistiamo da mesi, speriamo che i signori del No la smettano. pic.twitter.com/joUT4xPchj

— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) July 25, 2022

The coalition has additionally pledged to ditch the reddito di cittadinanza, an unemployment benefit introduced by the M5S in 2019, and replace it with a more efficient alternative – though it’s currently unclear what form that would take.

As you might expect from a right-wing bloc, the group is taking a hard line on immigration and security. Proposals include creating offshore reception centres or ‘hot spots’ to process asylum applications outside the EU, and strengthening ‘Operation Safe Streets’ (Operazione Strade Sicure), an initiative introduced by Berlusconi in 2008 under which Italian military personnel are deployed to guard sites of historic and strategic importance and to maintain public order.

On energy, the right have said they are in favour of using ‘clean and safe’ nuclear energy, developing biogas, wind and solar energy sources, and resuming offshore gas exploration and extraction.

All three parties have said they are in favour of continuing to buy gas from Russia (the previous government had planned to wean Italy off Russian gas by 2025).

READ ALSO: An introductory guide to the Italian political system

A major institutional reform proposed by the centrodestra – and promoted by Berlusconi in particular – would change Italy’s system of governance from that of a parliamentary republic to a French-style presidential system in which citizens vote directly for a president who is both the head of state and head of government on a two-term basis.

Currently, Italy’s president is elected by members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on a seven-year cycle, and performs a largely (but not exclusively) ceremonial role.

The Democratic Party (Partito Democratico)

The Democratic Party (PD) are part of a centre-left coalition that includes a large number of smaller parties – but as things stand, they currently have no unified platform, so the following policies are PD’s alone.

Like the centrodestra, PD also proposes tax breaks, but of a more modest nature. Under a PD-led government, each individual would receive the equivalent of one month’s pay in tax relief via a reduction in Inps (social security) contributions. Employers would also receive fiscal incentives to award permanent contracts to under-35s.

The party says it will raise teachers’ salaries to bring them in line with the European average over the next five years; introduce a minimum wage; amend the reddito di cittadinanza such that large families are no longer penalised; and award a lump sum of €10,000 to young people from households under a certain income threshold when they turn 18.

PD also proposes introducing benefits for people in low-paid jobs who are struggling to get by, and says it will build 500,000 social housing units in the next ten years. It plans to introduce the Zan bill, which would make would make discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal.

On energy, the party is anti-nuclear but in favour of liquified natural gas (LNG) plants, highlighting that it considers the latter to be a temporary bridging solution while Italy completes its ‘ecological transition’ to clean energy. Without going into detail, its manifesto proposes the creation of a ‘National Anti-Nimby Compensation Fund’ that would presumably be used to incentivise certain parts of the country to allow the construction of renewable energy plants. 

PD’s manifesto is pro-immigration, proposing a new immigration law that would make it easier to legally relocate to Italy for work. It also proposes the introduction of the Ius Scholae, which would allow children who arrived in Italy under the age of 12 and have completed five years of schooling in the country to apply for citizenship.

On an institutional level, the left wants to put some mechanisms in place that would help prevent Italy’s governments from collapsing on a continual basis, starting with the sfiducia costruttiva (‘constructive vote of no confidence’) rule. Already in place Spain and Germany, the system prevents parliament from holding a vote of no confidence in the government unless they’ve already identified a new executive that can take its place.

The Five Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle)

As the reddito di cittadinanza was M5S’s brainchild, the party is predictably in favour of maintaining the unemployment benefit – though its leaders have said they would introduce safeguards to combat fraud.

The group also wants to implement a national minimum wage of €9 per hour, abolish unpaid internships, and secure wage parity for women; as well as proposing tax cuts for businesses.

Like the centrodestra, M5S also proposes abolishing VAT on basic foodstuffs, claiming it was their idea in the first place.

Siamo stati i primi a mettere nero su bianco l'azzeramento dell'Iva sui beni di prima necessità come pane, pasta, carne, latte.

Lo abbiamo fatto già ad aprile, con un documento. Ne ha parlato qualcuno? Nessuno, da nessuna parte, in nessun Tg. @GiuseppeConteIT pic.twitter.com/ZUZL7wmHpg

— MoVimento 5 Stelle (@Mov5Stelle) July 28, 2022

M5S, which has long had a focus on environmental concerns, is opposed to both nuclear energy and LNG plants, instead saying it will ‘debureaucratise’ the construction of renewable energy plants and introduce a superbonus for energy companies aimed at promoting renewable energy.

Many of M5S’s other policies are identical to those of PD’s, including the five-year salary raise for teachers and the implementation of the Zan Bill, Ius Scholae, and the sfiducia costruttiva mechanism.

You might wonder why M5S and PD don’t band together given the similarity of their platforms: the answer is that the two groups are currently at loggerheads. M5S is the party responsible for pulling the trigger on Mario Draghi’s ‘unity’ coalition government in July, a move that catapulted Italy into early elections and was denounced by most of the centre-left as wildly irresponsible.

Pundits say M5S, which shot to power on an anti-establishment platform in 2018 and has been sliding in the polls ever since, was attempting to claw back voter support by refusing to pass a major aid bill that included a provision to build a massive waste-to-energy incinerator outside Rome (the party opposed on environmental grounds).

The move backfired when Draghi said he would resign rather than give in to M5S’s demands, prompting the former prime minister to call a confidence vote that he lost and triggering snap elections that the centrodestra are predicted to win comfortably.

The ‘third pole’ (terzo polo)

Currently polling at around five percent, the centrist parties Azione and Italia Viva, making up the so-called third pole or third electoral alliance, aren’t considered major contenders in these elections, but they do have some political influence and could split the vote.

These parties are running with an election manifesto focused on tax reform, “sustainable economic growth”, and equal opportunities.

The coalition has similar policies to PD and M5S on the introduction of a minimum wage and Ius Scholae.

The third pole in fact goes one step further, saying it intends to grant citizenship to all foreign students who have completed their university studies in Italy.

On energy issues, they’re closer to the centrodestra, favouring both nuclear and LNG plants and proposing to reactivate and upgrade existing natural gas plants.

The manifesto stresses the need to push ahead with planned reforms to Italy’s tax and justice systems and to “widen opportunities for all and to radically simplify life for citizens”.

Find all the latest news on Italy’s election race here.