Italy’s opposition alliance yesterday celebrated victory in Umbria, dealing a blow to the nation’s ruling coalition.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini had vowed to win the hilly region prized for its truffles and prosciutto in the first of several key region elections he hopes will sweep him back to power.
Salvini said the results of Sunday’s vote were “extraordinary,” expressing his “joy and emotion” after Donatella Tesei won with more than 57 percent, compared to 37 percent for the coalition government’s candidate.
Photo: AP
It was Salvini’s League party that had swept the board, bringing home 37 percent of the vote alone in a region that has voted left for 70 years, but has been hit hard by an economic crisis.
Salvini’s campaign trail allies — the Brothers of Italy and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia — won 10 percent and 5.8 percent respectively.
The government coalition of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party — former foes — had joined forces for the regional vote in a bid to beat Salvini, but came up short.
The Democratic Party won 22 percent, but the Five Star Movement took home just 7.4 percent — a pitiful result that shook the party to its core.
Salvini said the “days are numbered” for Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the coalition party leaders, who are accused of having betrayed Italians by forming an alliance to prevent Italy heading to elections they would likely lose.
“The center-right has the right and duty to govern the country,” Berlusconi said after the Umbria win, while Brothers of Italy head Giorgia Meloni said: “If I were Conte, I’d hand in my resignation faster than light.”
Political analysts had said a poor result for the Five Star Movement could spark an internal rebellion within it by those who were against the tie-up with the Democratic Party, or those who want Five Star Movement leader Luigi di Maio gone.
“We always considered the civil pact for Umbria to be a test, but the experiment did not work,” the Five Star Movement said on Facebook.
It said a tie-up with the Democratic Party at other regional votes was now in question, but brushed off suggestions that the coalition government could be brought down by the Umbria loss.
The Democratic Party said that it had been hampered at the ballot box by a health sector scandal: Umbria governor and Democratic Party member Catiuscia Marini quit in April following a probe into competitive exams for the hiring of hospital staff.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS