Italians voted yesterday in one of the most uncertain elections in years and one that could determine if Italy will succumb to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe.
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Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, “for topping the poll” as by far Italy’s biggest single party. It identifies with neither left nor right and draws disgruntled voters from across the political spectrum.
Even though Mattarella can choose someone to form a government, M5S has “more than a third of the seats in both houses” which means the party can “block any government it opposed”.
Parliamentary arithmetic suggests he is right.
Pending the outcome of government coalition talks, the 5-Star Movement could set Italy’s European Union policy for years to come.
The center-left coalition that has governed Italy since 2013 trailed badly at 23 percent.
The right have promised to expel “600,000 illegals”, with League leader Matteo Salvini, whose campaign slogans include “Italians first”, repeatedly referring to “out of control immigration”.
“In the south, the Five Star vote was a protest of a part of the country that feels neglected as the economic recovery is only being felt in the north”, said Roberto D’Alimonte, politics professor at Rome’s Luiss university.
The notion that a group such as Alternative für Deutschland, with its dog-whistle slogans and neo-Nazi features, could nearly overtake Germany’s social democrats is just one of the many astonishing and unsafe developments to engulf the European political establishment in recent years. He met privately with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2014 in Milan, has aligned himself with France’s populist leader Marine Le Pen and praised Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban, who similarly took a hard stand on migrants.
“I voted Communist and I was disappointed, I voted for PD for many years, and now I’m fed up with them”, said pensioner Francesco.
A rightist alliance including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia held the biggest bloc of votes.
If Di Maio and Salvini were to join forces, the anti-establishment alliance would control both houses. Most comments from supporters on the party’s website on Monday expressed a desire to govern with whomever may be necessary.
In Italy, no less than in Cornwall, the West Midlands and Sunderland, or West Virginia and MI for that matter, too many voters feel left behind, and are receptive to politicians offering them easy solutions to complex problems, promising, in effect, a better yesterday.
Mattarella, for whom Italy’s image overseas is of paramount concern, will be a key player in coalition talks.
Whatever the new government’s final composition, this vote shows that Italy, birthplace of the original fascist movement founded by Benito Mussolini, has made a decision to privilege its rightist rather than leftist roots and identity.
The full result is not due until later today and, with the centre-right coalition on course for 37% of the vote and Five-Star for 31%, swift new elections to try to break the deadlock are another plausible scenario. After Di Maio’s policy shifts, the positions of the two parties are now not far apart on Europe, welfare and taxation. But as the first results were trickling in early Monday, Five Star leaders started sending another message, saying they expected Italy’s parties will have to come to them to work out a deal for government.
The Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry says it is “of great importance for the German economy whether Italy can form a stable government and continue following the path of reform it has set out on”.
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“We need a really radical change, let’s give these young people a chance”, he added, speaking to AFP in the southern town of Pomigliano d’Arco, where M5S leader Luigi Di Maio is standing.
