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What to expect after the Italian election: a look at the possible outcomes

Italians are used to living with political uncertainty thanks to the over 60 governments it has piled through since the republic was established after the Second World War.

Published: 1 March 2018 09:25 CET
What to expect after the Italian election: a look at the possible outcomes
A woman looks at the board bearing the parties' logos. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

The country heads to the polls on March 4th to elect its representatives in the lower house Chamber of Deputies and upper house Senate.

But with a fragmented political landscape and a complicated new electoral law in place that mixes proportional representation with first-past-the-post, the country could wake up on Monday to any one of a variety of scenarios.

Here's a look at what could happen.

A right-wing coalition

“It is unlikely that any of the three main contenders will be able to obtain a majority, but there is only one that can, and it's the right,” says Roberto D'Alimonte, Director of the Political Science Department of Rome's Luiss University.

The right-wing coalition brings together four parties, the biggest of which are Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) and the far-right League.

An agreement between Berlusconi and League leader Matteo Salvini says that whoever comes first of the two parties will lead the government, should the coalition win a majority.

Banned from public office thanks to a tax fraud investigation, Berlusconi has said in that scenario, and with FI the bigger of the two main parties, he would like to see Antonio Tajani lead the government. However, Tajani has not yet said whether he is ready to give up the presidency of the European Parliament.

If the League comes out on top, Salvini will be premier, assuming that Berlusconi keeps his word and lines up behind him.

READ MORE:


Berlusconi with coalition allies Giorgia Meloni and Salvini. Photo: Livio Anticoli/AFP

A grand coalition

Brussels is betting on a German-style grand coalition between FI and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), both pro-EU parties. Neither Berlusconi nor PD leader Matteo Renzi have dared suggest that they might enter into such an agreement during the election campaign, but it is exactly what happened after the last general election in 2013.

The website Votewatch Europe notes that FI's representatives in the European Parliament have voted with the PD 76 percent of the time, but only 36 percent of the time with the League. However, there is no guarantee that the PD, FI and their Europhile allies — perhaps even boosted by defectors from the League who have little taste for their party's recent nationalist rebrand — will obtain enough votes to gain a majority in the upper and lower houses.

Another hypothesis, and one denied even more vigorously, is a eurosceptic alliance between the League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). But that partnership would also not be guaranteed to pick up enough votes and would be subject to fierce internal opposition from within both parties.

It would also run counter to the conciliatory tone recently offered towards the EU by M5S leader Luigi Di Maio, a shift from the instinctive euroscepticism of party founder Beppe Grillo.

READ MORE:

Is Italy's Five Star Movement still an 'anti-establishment' party?

Photo: Piero Cruciatti/AFP

No parliamentary majority

The last available polls from mid-February gave the right-wing coalition 38 percent of voting intentions (of which 17 percent went to FI and 13 to the League), 28 percent to M5S and 26 percent to the centre-left coalition led by the PD, but with millions still undecided.

If there is no new majority in parliament, Paolo Gentiloni will remain as prime minister. In the meantime President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella will consult the various parliamentary groups to see if there is a figure who can command a majority, and if not, new elections could be called.

Regardless of the outcome, the procedure will take its time. The two chambers will meet for the first time on March 23rd to form groups in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate to elect the president of each house.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the Italian election

What you need to know about Italy's 2018 election

By Ljubomir Milasin

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

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

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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