Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi goes into elections this weekend hoping nascent signs of economic recovery after years of recession will outweigh a corruption scandal that has dogged one of the main candidates of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD).<\/p>\n
Sunday’s ballots in seven regions and more than 1,000 municipalities, which follow a bruising series of parliamentary battles over Renzi’s reform agenda, will be his biggest test since a triumph in last year’s European elections.<\/p>\n
Emboldened by the success of Spain’s anti-austerity Podemos party in their local elections last weekend, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement is hoping voter disillusion with the mainstream parties will give it a boost.<\/p>\n
PD leftwingers are also in rebellious mood over labor reforms and changes to electoral rules which they say weaken the independence of parliament.<\/p>\n
But facing a divided center-right, where a new generation is fighting to seize the reins from the 78-year-old Silvio Berlusconi, Renzi’s candidates are expected to win in most of the regions being contested. They currently hold power in five of the seven.<\/p>\n
The center-right is confident of keeping the northeastern region of Veneto, one of the heartlands of the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic Northern League, whose 41-year-old leader Matteo Salvini has emerged as the strongest leader on the right.<\/p>\n
SIGNS OF RECOVERY<\/strong><\/p>\n Helped by early signs of economic recovery, Renzi’s centre-left is expected to win in its central heartlands of Tuscany, Umbria and Le Marche, as well as Puglia in the southeast.<\/p>\n Campania in the south and Liguria in the northwest, where an alternative leftwing candidate could erode PD support, remain the main likely battlegrounds.<\/p>\n Appointed last year after a party coup that brought him to office without winning a national election, Renzi, 40, is counting on voter backing for a mandate to press on with bitterly contested school reforms this year.<\/p>\n Playing down expectations, he said this month that if the PD won four of the seven regions “it would still be a victory”.<\/p>\n However, the election risks being overshadowed by scandals surrounding several candidates, including Vincenzo De Luca, the PD candidate for president of Campania, the region around the crime-ridden city of Naples.<\/p>\n Renzi has backed De Luca, who was chosen as the PD candidate in a primary ballot, but the case has highlighted how little control he exerts over local party organizations with strong local power bases.<\/p>\n De Luca, a deputy minister in the government of former Prime Minister Enrico Letta, is appealing against a conviction for abuse of office over the award of a local incinerator plant contract in 2008.<\/p>\n Several other local candidates from Campania are also expected to feature on a list of 17 “impresentabili” or “unpresentables” expected to be unveiled by the parliamentary anti-mafia committee on Friday.<\/p>\n An old-style local party baron who was forced to resign as mayor of Salerno after the ruling, De Luca has shrugged off criticism and has a narrow opinion poll lead over sitting regional president Stefano Caldoro of the centre-right.<\/p>\n However, even if he wins on Sunday, he may be forced to stand down if a judge rules he is ineligible under anti-corruption laws that prevent convicted criminals from holding public office.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi goes into elections this weekend hoping nascent signs of economic recovery after years of recession will outweigh a corruption scandal that has dogged one of the main candidates of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD). Sunday’s ballots in seven regions and more than 1,000 municipalities, which follow a bruising series of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":119931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-119929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/119931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}