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Left holds Italy’s Emilia Romagna in key regional vote

Italy's populist leader Matteo Salvini failed to win a key regional election and topple the country's fragile coalition government, official results showed on Monday.

Published: 27 January 2020 08:33 CET
Left holds Italy's Emilia Romagna in key regional vote
Electoral posters during the hotly fought campaign in Emilia Romagna. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The defeat was a major rebuff of Salvini and his nationalist League, which had hoped to score a historic upset and force snap elections in the regional vote in Emilia Romagna, but a high turnout favoured the incumbent centre-left candidate.

The Democratic Party's (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.36 percent of the vote against the anti-immigrant League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni's 43.68 percent, according to official results released by the interior ministry on Monday.

The League's defeat now makes it harder for the party to win other key upcoming regional elections, such as Tuscany and Puglia, where it hopes to sway voters to the right. 

READ ALSO: 'Enough hate': Who are the protesting 'Sardines' packing into Italian squares?

The wealthy centre-north region of Emilia Romagna has been a stronghold of the Italian left for over 70 years, but while left-wing values still hold sway in its cities, the right had rallied serious support in towns and the countryside.

Pre-election polls showed the League neck-and-neck with the PD, which governs Italy in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).

Turnout in the key region was almost double at around 67 percent compared with 37 percent in 2014, potentially thanks to the support of the anti-populist youth-driven Sardines movement. Some 3.5 million citizens were eligible to cast ballots to elect the region's president.

In the smaller southern region of Calabria, the candidate of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Jole Santelli, won handily with 55.71 percent of the vote.

For months, the League has been hoping for a repeat of its historic win in October in Umbria, which had been a left-wing fiefdom for 50 years. League candidate Borgonzoni, 43, was overshadowed by Salvini, who held daily rallies and inundated social media with snaps of him sampling delicacies in the Parma ham and Parmesan cheese heartland.


League leader Matteo Salvini with centre-right Senator and regional candidate Lucia Borgonzoni during a rally. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Salvini infuriated the left on Saturday when he broke the pre-election silence — which under Italian law means candidates cannot campaign the day before a vote — by tweeting about the “eviction notice” he was set to deliver to the government.

“Arrogance never pays,” PD candidate Bonaccini said later in his victory speech, scoffing at Salvini's promises to “liberate” the region.

The PD candidate had hoped his track record in the region — which boasts low jobless figures and is home to “Made in Italy” success stories such as Ferrari and Lamborghini — would translate into victory.

He also benefitted from the Sardines movement, which was born in the region just a couple of months ago but has fast become a national symbol of protest against the far right.

Still, analysts said many local family-run, artisanal firms were disgruntled and feeling left behind by the march of globalization.

READ ALSO: Thousands of 'Sardines' rally in Bologna ahead of regional vote


An anti-League protester in Bologna a few days before Sunday's vote. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The League triumphed in Emilia Romagna at the European Parliament elections in May, becoming the leading party with nearly 34 percent of the votes, topping the PD's 31 percent. Just five years earlier it had taken home a mere five percent, compared to the PD's 53 percent.

On Sunday, voter Andrea Setti told AFP he felt it was even more important than usual for him to cast his ballot, as the region's political “colour”, or allegiance, was no longer clear.

“Now you cannot really know which way it's going to go,” he said.

Fellow voter Lisa Zanarini, 31, said she hoped people would not be seduced by “easy words and easy promises”.

READ ALSO:

Editorialist Stefano Polli wrote in La Repubblica that Salvini will have to change his strategy if he hopes to prevail: “Even if the man doesn't seem capable of any other strategy besides rallies and TV talk shows”.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had dismissed fears of a government crisis were Salvini's party to win, saying the election concerned the region alone and had no bearing on national politics.

The coalition's main stabilizing factor is a joint fear of snap elections which would likely hand power to Salvini, whose party is well ahead in national polls. Analysts had warned that a League victory could cause the M5S, which is riven by infighting and has been haemorrhaging members, to collapse.

Contested M5S head Luigi Di Maio resigned Wednesday in a bid to stave off a crisis — but political watchers cautioned it may not be enough.

By AFP's Giovanni Grezzi and Ella Ide

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POLITICS

Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

The year 2024 is a bumper one for elections, among them the European elections in June. Italy is of course a member of the EU - so can foreign residents vote in the elections that will almost certainly affect their daily lives?

Published: 3 May 2024 15:25 CEST
Can foreign residents in Italy vote in the European elections?

Across Europe, people will go to the polls in early June to select their representatives in the European Parliament, with 76 seats up for grabs in Italy. 

Although European elections usually see a much lower turnout than national elections, they are still seen as important by Italian politicians.

Giorgia Meloni will stand as a candidate this year, hoping use her personal popularity to give her Brothers of Italy party a boost and build on her success in Italy to “send the left into opposition” at the European level too.

When to vote

Across Italy, polling takes place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2024.

Polling stations will be set up in the same places as for national and local elections – usually town halls, leisure centres and other public buildings.

You have to vote at the polling station for the municipality in which you are registered as a resident, which should be indicated on your electoral card.

Polling stations open at 8am and mostly close at 6pm, although some stay open later.

Unlike in presidential or local elections, there is only a single round of voting in European elections.

Who can vote? 

Italian citizens – including dual nationals – can vote in European elections, even if they don’t live in Italy. As is common for Italian domestic elections, polling booths will be set up in Italian consulates around the world to allow Italians living overseas to vote.

Non-Italian citizens who are living in Italy can only vote if they have citizenship of an EU country. So for example Irish citizens living in Italy can vote in European elections but Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. cannot.

Brits in Italy used to be able to vote before Brexit, but now cannot – even if they have the post-Brexit carta di soggiorno.

If you have previously voted in an election in Italy – either local or European – you should still be on the electoral roll.

If not, in order to vote you need to send an application more than 90 days before the election date.

How does the election work?

The system for European elections differs from most countries’ domestic polls. MEPs are elected once every five years.

Each country is given an allocation of MEPs roughly based on population size. At present there are 705 MEPs: Germany – the country in the bloc with the largest population – has the most while the smallest number belong to Malta with just six.

Italy, like most of its EU neighbours, elects its MEPs through direct proportional representation via the ‘list’ system, so that parties gain the number of MEPs equivalent to their share of the overall vote.

So, for example, if Meloni’s party won 50 percent of the vote they would get 38 out of the total of 76 Italian seats.

Exactly who gets to be an MEP is decided in advance by the parties who publish their candidate lists in priority order. So let’s say that Meloni’s party does get that 50 percent of the vote – then the people named from 1 to 38 on their list get to be MEPs, and the people lower down on the list do not, unless a candidate (for example, Meloni) declines the seat and passes it on to the next person on the list.

In the run up to the election, the parties decide on who will be their lead candidates and these people will almost certainly be elected (though Meloni would almost definitely not take up her seat as an MEP, as this would mean resigning from office in Italy).

The further down the list a name appears, the less likely that person is to be heading to parliament.

Once in parliament, parties usually seek to maximise their influence by joining one of the ‘blocks’ made up of parties from neighbouring countries that broadly share their interests and values eg centre-left, far-right, green.

The parliament alternates between Strasbourg and Brussels. 

Find out more about voting in the European elections from Italy on the European Parliament’s website or the Italian interior ministry’s website.

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