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ITALIAN ELECTIONS

ELECTIONS: Italy’s hard-right parties hold the lead in final opinion polls

Italy’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party and its right-wing coalition partners held a significant lead on Friday as the last opinion poll results came in ahead of the vote.

Published: 9 September 2022 18:54 CEST
ELECTIONS: Italy’s hard-right parties hold the lead in final opinion polls
Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia party is leading opinion polls ahead of Italy's general election on September 25, 2022. Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP

Italy’s right-wing coalition maintained its lead over other parties in opinion polls on Friday as the last surveys were released before the pre-vote polling embargo kicks in for the two weeks ahead of the September 25th general election, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

EXPLAINED: Who’s who in Italy’s general election?

Support for Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia, FdI) rose to 25.3 percent of those polled by Quorum/Youtrend for Sky TG24.

Together with iits right-wing coalition partners, FdI looked set to take more than 47 percent of the vote, with Matteo Salvini’s League at 12.9 percent and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) on 7.9 percent.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) remained in second place, polling at 21.2 percent.

Together with its smaller left-wing allies, it was forecast to take some 28 percent of the vote – almost 20 points behind the right.

Have your say: How do you feel about Italy’s elections?

The populist Five Star Movement (M5S) was in third place, running alone with support rising to 13.8 percent, while the centrist alliance between Azione and Italia Viva held 5.5 percent.

Other polls by Youtrend for AGI,Termometro Politico, and Ipsos for Corriere della Sera similarly put FdI on 24-25 percent on Friday.

FdI have been leading the polls since Italy’s early elections were announced, meaning leader Giorgia Meloni is tipped to become Italy’s next prime minister.

The right-wing alliance is expected to win by a landslide – potentially forming a government with an unprecedented ‘super majority’ that would allow it to make changes to the political system itself, and therefore the constitution.

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

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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”.

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