Italians may steer clear of regional elections
Source: Agencies |
March 29, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GRAFT scandals and bureaucratic bungling by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's party risked putting a damper on turnout as Italy began voting yesterday in regional elections.
"Recent episodes of corruption and the risk of unemployment keep voters away," Nando Pagnoncelli of polling firm IPSOS said as polls opened for the two-day vote.
More than 41 million people are eligible to vote for the governors of 13 of Italy's 20 regions, as well as heads of four provinces and nearly 500 town halls.
Pollsters say rising unemployment is the top concern for 79 percent of Italians and expect the ruling center right to retain control of the Lombardy and Veneto regions in the industrial north and win over Calabria and possibly Campania in the poorer south.
The center left, ousted from power by Berlusconi in the 2008 national election, should hold on to at least five regions, four of them in its traditional central heartland - Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche - and Basilicata in the south. Four other regions - including Lazio region which contains Rome - are too close to call.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party suffered a big setback by missing a deadline for registering its list of candidates for Rome, handicapping its contender for governor of Lazio, Renata Polverini, against former European Commissioner Emma Bonino.
Berlusconi appealed and lost, blaming communist judges whom he accuses of persecuting him with corruption charges.
"Recent episodes of corruption and the risk of unemployment keep voters away," Nando Pagnoncelli of polling firm IPSOS said as polls opened for the two-day vote.
More than 41 million people are eligible to vote for the governors of 13 of Italy's 20 regions, as well as heads of four provinces and nearly 500 town halls.
Pollsters say rising unemployment is the top concern for 79 percent of Italians and expect the ruling center right to retain control of the Lombardy and Veneto regions in the industrial north and win over Calabria and possibly Campania in the poorer south.
The center left, ousted from power by Berlusconi in the 2008 national election, should hold on to at least five regions, four of them in its traditional central heartland - Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche - and Basilicata in the south. Four other regions - including Lazio region which contains Rome - are too close to call.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party suffered a big setback by missing a deadline for registering its list of candidates for Rome, handicapping its contender for governor of Lazio, Renata Polverini, against former European Commissioner Emma Bonino.
Berlusconi appealed and lost, blaming communist judges whom he accuses of persecuting him with corruption charges.
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