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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

Govt source says Italy considering ‘reciprocal plan’ to swap refugees with US

Italy and the United States are drawing up a plan to exchange a small number of refugees in a reported bid to deter illegal migration, an Italian government source said on Friday.

Published: 31 May 2024 17:13 CEST
Govt source says Italy considering 'reciprocal plan' to swap refugees with US

“A reciprocal plan is currently being studied, according to which the US would host refugees present in Libya who want to go to Europe,” a source in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

At the same time, “some European Mediterranean states would host a few dozen South American refugees”, the source said.

The source was responding to a report by CBS News in the United States, which suggested that President Joe Biden’s administration was also in talks with Greece.

CBS said refugees would be selected at immigration offices set up by the United States last year in four Latin American countries.

It said 500 people could be sent both to Italy and Greece, though the source in Meloni’s office said that figure was “completely misleading”.

Rome is looking to accept “about 20 Venezuelan refugees of Italian origin” who would be able to work in Italy, the source said.

The plan would be “very advantageous for Italy and the European states of first arrival”, the source said, without elaborating.

A separate source at Italy’s interior ministry said Rome would “never assent to the relocation of hundreds of people on its national territory in view of its already considerable efforts in receiving migrants”.

In Athens, Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis dismissed the report.

“The CBS report is untrue. There is neither an agreement nor a request from the US to resettle legal immigrants in Greece,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela, as they flee poverty, violence and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.

Meanwhile Italy is among the first ports of call for migrants crossing from North Africa into Europe, recording almost 160,000 irregular arrivals by boat across the central Mediterranean last year.

Meloni’s government has made stopping irregular migration into Italy a priority.

It has sought to speed up asylum processing requests while signing new deals with departure countries.

It has also tried to deter migrants by setting up a new processing centre in Albania and limiting the activities of charities that operate rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nearly 21,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year, compared to more than 50,000 in the same period last year, according to government data.

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