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Italy's far-right Salvini fails to gain foothold in key regional election
Italy's far-right leader Matteo Salvini has suffered a setback after his League Party failed to unseat the left in a key election in the country's north.
The centre-left Democratic Party's (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.4% of the vote in Emilia-Romagna, while the League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni took 43.6%.
The election had been seen as a test of Italy's national coalition government.
Mr Salvini campaigned extensively in Emilia-Romagna, hoping to depose the left and force snap elections.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51259290
The centre-left Democratic Party's (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.4% of the vote in Emilia-Romagna, while the League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni took 43.6%.
The election had been seen as a test of Italy's national coalition government.
Mr Salvini campaigned extensively in Emilia-Romagna, hoping to depose the left and force snap elections.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51259290
The League’s defeat in Emilia-Romagna, which has been governed by the left in various guises since the end of the second world war, is a massive setback for Salvini, the former deputy prime minister who turned the elections into a referendum on the fragile national coalition between the PD and M5S as he plots a return to power.
Salvini had threatened to send an eviction notice to the government if his coalition, which includes Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia, prevailed on Sunday. A more subdued Salvini told reporters in the early hours of Monday that he was proud of his group’s performance in Emilia-Romagna, adding that “for the first time in 70 years, there was a match”.
...
Voter turnout in Emilia-Romagna was almost double that of 2014, when Bonaccini won his first mandate, and may have been boosted by the Sardines, a movement against the far right that emerged in Bologna in November and has since spread across Italy. Salvini campaigned vigorously across the region since the League and its allies scored their last major victory in Umbria, a former leftwing stronghold, in late October 2019.
“I suspect that the Sardines, more than anything else, took votes away from M5S,” said Piccoli. “But in some ways, Salvini is equally responsible for the success and failure of this campaign – maybe by being present everywhere and every day he pushed a lot of people who were otherwise on the fence to vote against him.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/27/salvini-suffers-setback-in-leftwing-stronghold-during-italy-regional-elections
Salvini had threatened to send an eviction notice to the government if his coalition, which includes Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia, prevailed on Sunday. A more subdued Salvini told reporters in the early hours of Monday that he was proud of his group’s performance in Emilia-Romagna, adding that “for the first time in 70 years, there was a match”.
...
Voter turnout in Emilia-Romagna was almost double that of 2014, when Bonaccini won his first mandate, and may have been boosted by the Sardines, a movement against the far right that emerged in Bologna in November and has since spread across Italy. Salvini campaigned vigorously across the region since the League and its allies scored their last major victory in Umbria, a former leftwing stronghold, in late October 2019.
“I suspect that the Sardines, more than anything else, took votes away from M5S,” said Piccoli. “But in some ways, Salvini is equally responsible for the success and failure of this campaign – maybe by being present everywhere and every day he pushed a lot of people who were otherwise on the fence to vote against him.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/27/salvini-suffers-setback-in-leftwing-stronghold-during-italy-regional-elections
