Italy election: Italy goes to the polls

ITALIAN voters have delivered a hung parliament, flocking to anti-establishment and far-right parties in record numbers and casting the euro zone’s third-largest economy into a political gridlock that could take months to clear.

If early projections are confirmed from Sunday’s vote, none of Italy’s three main blocs or groups can rule alone and there is little prospect of a return to mainstream government. Scenarios now include a more euro-sceptic coalition or a even return to the polls.

A rightist alliance emerged with the biggest bloc of votes, ahead of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which saw its support soar to become the largest single party, according to projections based on early vote-counting.

A top leader of the 5-Star Movement says if exit poll data prove accurate, it’s an election “triumph” for the populist force.

Alessandro Di Battista, addressing 5-Star supporters early Monday, local time, exulted over indications the anti-establishment movement was the leading party in Italy’s election for Parliament.

But the 30 percent support indicated by a RAI state TV exit poll is far short of the absolute majority needed to form Italy’s next government. The 5-Star Movement has officially vowed not to join any post-election coalitions. But Di Battista welcomed other parties to come talk as long as they use 5-Star “methods” of “transparency” and “correctness” in political conduct. One possible partner is the anti-migrant League led by Matteo Salvini. He is dueling with ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi for leadership of the center-right bloc that early projections had as the largest bloc in the new Parliament.

The ruling centre-left coalition came third, hurt by anger over growing poverty, high unemployment and mass immigration.

The full result is not due for many hours and previous elections in Italy have seen wild swings as the count proceeds.

A prolonged political stalemate could make heavily indebted Italy the focus of market concern in Europe, now that the threat of German instability has receded after the revival on Sunday of a grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The euro dipped in Asia early on Monday, with investors awaiting clearer results from Italy.

“Italy is far from having sorted its long-standing problems, and now it will have new ones. Be prepared for long and complex negotiations that will take months,” said Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at the Italian Treasury.

The centre-right alliance including Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy!), was seen winning 37.3 per cent in the upper house Senate, according to projections made by SWG pollsters based on early vote counts, short of the 40 per cent analysts believe is needed for a working majority.

The 5-Star Movement was on track to win 32.3 per cent of the vote, while the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) was projected to see its support collapse to 18.9 percent.

Within the rightist bloc, the League was put on 17.5 per cent, well ahead of the more moderate Forza Italia, suggesting its pledge of zero tolerance on immigration and tough anti-EU rhetoric had resonated with voters.

During two months of election campaigning, party leaders repeatedly ruled out any post-election tie-ups with their rivals. However, Italy has a long history of finding a way out of apparently intractable political stalemate. The 5-Star once rejected talk of any power sharing, but it has since modified its position and says it is willing to discuss shared policies but not negotiate over cabinet posts.

“This is a real moment of glory,” Di Battista told reporters as the first results arrived.

TOPLESS PROTESTER CONFRONTS BERLUSCONI

Earlier, a topless Femen activist confronted the former prime minster and leader of Forza Italia party Silvio Berlusconi at a polling booth on Sunday, jumping on a table as he was about to hand in his ballot and displaying “Berlusconi, you’ve expired” on her bare torso.

Berlusconi, 81, turned away and was escorted out. He can’t run for office because of a tax fraud conviction, but he has tapped European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, considered a pro-European moderate, as his pick if the centre-right is asked to form a government.

League leader Matteo Salvini is also gunning for the top job, and some pro- European analysts envisioned a possible “nightmare scenario” of an extremist alliance among the 5-Stars, the League and the Brothers of Italy.

Italians braved long lines and confusing ballots to vote on Sunday in one of the most uncertain elections in years. It’s an election that could determine if the country succumbs to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe.

Some Italian polling stations faced ballot delivery problems and all had new time-consuming anti-fraud measures in place that created bottlenecks at many stations. As the day wore on, authorities in Milan and Rome urged voters to give themselves plenty of time to cast their ballots and not wait until the last minute.

“You feel as if you have gone there prepared, but it’s not that clear,” Sister Vincenza complained as she cast her ballot on Rome’s Aventine hill before heading to Mass.

Some polling stations remained closed in Palermo two hours into election day because the wrong ballots were delivered and 200,000 new ones had to be reprinted overnight. Similar ballot glitches were reported elsewhere, forcing the suspension of the vote in two towns in Alessandria.

More than 46 million people were eligible to vote, including Italians abroad who already mailed in their ballots.

Italy’s political scene is dominated by three main blocs — the centre-right coalition anchored by Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the ruling centre-left coalition anchored by the Democratic Party and the anti- establishment 5-Star Movement.

ITALIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN MARKED BY ANTI-MIGRANT VIOLENCE

The campaign itself was marked by neo-fascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month against six Africans.

With unemployment at 10.8 per cent and economic growth in the eurozone’s third- largest economy lagging the average, many Italians have all but given up hope for change. Polls indicated a third hadn’t decided or weren’t even sure they would vote.

“The situation is pretty bad,” said Paolo Mercorillo from Ragusa, Sicily, who said he would not even bother casting a ballot. “There aren’t candidates who are valid enough.”

The populist 5-Star Movement hoped to capitalise on such disgust, particularly among Italy’s young.

Analysts originally predicted the only coalition with a shot of reaching an absolute majority is the centre-right, which aside from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia includes the anti-migrant League and the nationalistic, neofascist-rooted Brothers of Italy party.

Steve Bannon, right-wing populist architect of Donald Trump’s White House campaign, was in Rome this weekend, cheering on the populists. “I think if they create a coalition among all the populists it would be fantastic, it would terrify Brussels and pierce it in its heart,” Bannon was quoted as saying in Sunday’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Roberto D’Alimonte of Rome’s LUISS University said such an alliance would be “catastrophic” for the financial markets.

But he said the 5-Stars will have to decide if they’re going to join the right or the left if they’re going to move from being in the opposition to actually helping govern the country. “This will be the moment of truth,” he said.

With polls showing the centre-left trailing, Democratic leader Matteo Renzi and the current premier, Paolo Gentiloni, spent the final days of the campaign warning that the only way to guard against a turn to populists and extremists was to vote for the Democrats. Gentiloni has been cited as a possible candidate for premier.

A new law passed last year, ostensibly to make Italy more governable, calls for a combination of direct and proportional voting for both the lower Chamber of deputies, which has 630 seats, and the Senate, which has 315 seats. A few quirks could affect the outcome, particularly for the 5-Stars. For starters, the names of about a dozen 5-Star candidates appeared on the ballot, but they no longer represent the party. If they actually win, other parties can woo them away to beef up their own ranks.

Analysts also warned the ballot itself is confusing and could result in a higher-than-usual percentage of invalid votes.

In addition, new anti-fraud measures involved the time-consuming logging of individual ballot serial numbers in voter registry books, and then checking the completed ballot against them to make sure they match.

While European capitals and Brussels were watching the outcome of the vote for its effects on policy and markets, some in Italy had more at stake personally. Berlusconi has vowed to deport 600,000 migrants if the centre-right wins — a sentiment also endorsed by the anti-migrant Salvini.

“I fear these results, because I have arrived here with all my thoughts and dreams,” said Musab Badur, an asylum-seeker from Sudan who is living in a Milan shelter.

“And I never thought that one day maybe I would have to go back.”