Salvini’s Lega continues to to increase its support amongst Italian voters
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Financial Times: Matteo Salvini’s position at the heart of Italy’s new coalition government was bolstered after his candidates made big gains in municipal elections, including the capture of a trio of leftwing strongholds in Tuscany from the centre-left Democratic party.
The victories of Mr Salvini’s rightwing alliance in Siena, Pisa and Massa suggest the 45-year old interior minister’s populist, Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant message is attracting more voters. The results also led to a new round of soul searching in the PD — which governed Italy for five years before suffering heavy defeats in the country’s March 4 general election — about whether it can mount an effective opposition on a national scale.
The victories of rightwing candidates in local elections follow a sharp rise in national polls for the League. Before the March 4 election, surveys showed Mr Salvini’s party had won the support of about 14 per cent of Italians. By polling day, it had secured more than 17 per cent of the vote. Since then, as it sealed a coalition deal with Five Star to govern, it has been attracting even more support. Some polls show the League is Italy’s most popular party, with about 28 per cent of the electorate backing it.
Since June 1, Mr Salvini’s League has been governing Italy alongside the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, but in local elections it had joined forces with Forza Italia, the centre-right party led by Silvio Berlusconi, and Brothers of Italy, another far-right nationalist party.
“These are historic wins for the League in towns that have been administered by the left for decades: THANKS!!!,” Mr Salvini wrote on Facebook on Monday. “The more the left insults us, the more the citizens reward us.”
