Italian election live

Live coverage from Monday morning of today’s Italian election, which the far-right is likely to win. Also: Bolsonaro still likely to lose in Brazil’s elections.

Live Commentary

7am Tuesday The right coalition won 237 of the 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the left coalition 85, the Five Stars 52, centrists 21 and others five. In the Senate, the right coalition won 115 of the 200 seats, the left coalition 44, the Five Stars 28, centrists nine and others four. That gives the right coalition 59% of seats in the Chamber and 57.5% in the Senate.

Giorgia Meloni, the female leader of the Brothers of Italy, will be the first female Italian PM and the first far-right leader since Mussolini. While the Brothers will easily be the biggest party within the right coalition, they will depend on both the League and Forza Italia on confidence and legislative motions.

8:17pm As counting finishes in the FPTP seats, they’re being officially awarded to the winner. As the right is winning FPTP seats massively, they’re winning a big majority of seats awarded so far. The proportional seats won’t favour the right as much, but they’ll still win about 60% of seats in both houses. There’s still 0.4% left to count before we get final results.

1:58pm With over 90% reporting for the Senate, the right coalition has 44.2%, the left coalition 26.4%, the Five Stars 15.2% and the centrists 7.8%. Percentages are similar in the Chamber with 84% reporting.

11:37am At the 2018 election, the Five Stars won 32.2% in the Senate, the far-right League 17.6% and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy just 4.3%. Currently the Brothers are winning 26.5% in the Senate, the League 8.9% and Five Stars 15.0%.

10:56am With 51% counted in the Senate, the right leads by 43.6-27.4, with 14.8% Five Stars and 7.9% centrists. The Chamber count is well behind at 27%. The right is winning a landslide in the FPTP seats.

9:15am With 11% of the Senate vote counted, the right leads the left by 44-28 with 14% for the Five Star Movement and 8% centrists.

8:25am A Senate projection is that the right will win by 43% to 25% over the left with 17% for the Five Star Movement and 8% a centrist alliance. This would be an easy win for the right.

7:52am The Guardian’s live results looks good for following the results as they come in, though so far there’s been little vote counting.

7:11am Monday: The first Italian exit poll gives the right alliance 42%, the left alliance 28%, the Five Star Movement 16% and a centrist alliance 7%. This would be a majority for the right, but not a large one.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The Italian election is today, with polls closing at 7am Monday AEST (11pm Sunday in Italy). All of both the Italian parliament’s houses will be up for election: 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 200 in the Senate. Governments need the confidence of both houses. First past the post (FPTP) will be used to elect 37% of both houses, with the remainder allocated by proportional representation.

Unfortunately, Italy imposes a 15-day blackout on polls before an election, so the last polls were released on September 9. In these final polls, the right coalition was in the mid to high 40s, the left coalition mostly in the high 20s, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement at 12-15% and a centrist alliance at 5-8%. I dislike this blackout policy as we can’t know how accurate the polls are if they can’t poll in the final week.

The right coalition is composed of the far-right Brothers of Italy, far-right League, conservative Forza Italia and a small party, while the left coalition includes the centre-left Democrats and three small parties. The Brothers and League will win the large majority of seats within any right coalition.

Unless there’s a large swing back to the left during the 15-day poll blackout, the 37% of overall seats that are elected by FPTP will give the right coalition a clear overall majority in both houses. Giorgia Meloni, the female leader of the Brothers, is likely to be Italy’s next PM. If she wins, Meloni would be Italy’s first female PM and first far-right leader since Benito Mussolini.

The Guardian on Thursday had an article on how an Italian town that was once run by Communists is likely to vote for the far-right today. This relates to my theme that whites without a university education are increasingly voting for the right.

Brazilian presidential elections: October 2 and 30 (if necessary)

The first round of the Brazilian presidential election is next Sunday. If nobody wins at least 50%, a runoff between the top two first round candidates will be held October 30. The major contenders are the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), who was president from 2003 to 2010.

The last five Brazilian polls have had Lula leading Bolsonaro by seven to 14 points in the first round. If the contest goes to the October 30 runoff, the polls give Lula an eight to 17 point lead.

Brazilian polls include undecided. Lula is currently in the mid 40s in the first round in most polls, but undecided is at 5-10%. If undecided were excluded, as most polls in Australia do, Lula would be in the high 40s and close to the 50% needed to win outright in the first round and avoid a runoff.

There is another left-wing candidate (Gomes) who has 6-7%. Lula may be able to squeeze Gomes’ voters enough to reach a first round majority. The campaign has been ugly with violent incidents, so there is an incentive to end it next week rather than drag it out for another four weeks.

As well as the presidential election, there are legislative elections next Sunday. All 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies will be elected by proportional representation, and 27 of the 81 senators (one per state) will be elected by FPTP. Many parties are currently represented.

37 comments on “Italian election live”

  1. AB: The right coalition is composed of the far-right Brothers of Italy, far-right League, conservative Forza Italia and a small party,

    Me: The above coalition will define LNP as Left Liberal coalition and will give current Republicans run for its money. 🙂

  2. “The Guardian on Thursday had an article on how an Italian town that was once run by Communists is likely to vote for the far-right today. This relates to my theme that whites without a university education are increasingly voting for the right.”

    Interesting isn’t it? i.e. from far-left to far-right. I wonder why.

  3. Ven

    There is a lot of study of the “authoritarian mindset” in the far left and far right. The psychology of both groups is identical, they simply have different motivations. They care about power not principles. Easy to switch.

  4. Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has won Italy’s election, according to exit polls, and is on course to become the country’s first female prime minister.

    If they are confirmed, Ms Meloni will aim to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two.

    A Meloni-led Italy will alarm much of Europe with Russia at war in Ukraine.

    She is predicted to win between 22-26% of the vote, says a Rai exit poll, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the centre left.

    Several exit polls just published given her right-wing alliance a commanding lead, with 41-45% of the vote. That would give the three parties control of both elected houses of parliament.

    The centre left was well behind with 25.5%-29.5%. They failed to form a viable challenge with other parties, after Italy’s 18-month national unity government collapsed in July. The Five Star Movement under Giuseppe Conte is on course for third place but despite having several centre-left policies does not see eye to eye with Enrico Letta.

    Turnout was a dramatically low 64.7% by the time polls closed, said Italy’s interior ministry. Voting levels were especially poor in southern regions including Sicily.

  5. Currently according to Guardian projections, Far-right coalition is sitting on 50.9%for House and 48% for Senate.
    The difference between far-right coalition and Left is over 28%. It looks like political bloodbath for left and others.

  6. After about 100 years Italy will have a leader like Mussolini but this time that leader will be legitimately elected.
    After about 100 years we had a Pandemic and now this.

  7. Political bloodbath. Far-right leading right across Italy i.e. North, South, East and West. It looks like a landslide.
    There is possibility Meloni party may get majority or atleast close to it on its own based on current trends.

    But nobody in this blog condemns Italy because it is an ally.

  8. Now there is a very good possibility that whatever is discussed in NATO will be conveyed to Putin and all Ukrainian war plans may reach Putin

  9. Dismal result in Italy. It’s demoralising. This is a vote from disaffection, I suppose.

    I really love Italy and have travelled there several times. That was in earlier years. Some time ago. Oh, I was much younger and quite unaware. My curiosity had limits and was undeveloped. I’ve been planning to spend a couple of months there each year. Italy and Greece. My friends will house me, first in the mountains and then on an island. Oh, I will go, just the same. Oh, the past is always close by in Europe. Oh, it is met in the streets every day, for sure. The past has a life of its own and falls as a shadow upon the people. They really live side by side, the past and the people. Cheek by jowl.

    I will go anyway. For research. I want to find something out.

  10. Perhaps I could enrol here too:

    Lorenzo de Medici Art School

    About
    The Lorenzo de Medici Art School (LdM) has campuses in Florence, Rome and Tuscany and offers over 400 art related courses. The Rome school is part of the elegant Umbertine palace on Via XX Settembre, one of the most important streets in the city. The school offers a range of programs for international students such as weekly Italian language courses, one month art summer camps, 12-month Certificate programs and 4-year Bachelor of Arts degree programs. The 4-week summer art courses are open to adult students of all abilities and run June, July and August. Courses include 48 hours of tuition per month (12 hours a week). Art courses on offer include painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, mosaic art, restoration & conservation, photography, video, film and mixed media. Other courses include pastel techniques, watercolour, Florence sketchbook, portraiture in oils, gouache, egg tempera media and mixed media.

    Tuition Fee: An average one month art course costs $1,750, a semester $7,950 and a full year $15,550

    Why not.

  11. Well, if the exit polls results are confirmed, we can only say: “alea jacta est”… and see what a right-wing government led by the Neofascists is able to do in Italy. Orban and le Pen are over the moon, the people of Italy wanted change and they got a big one, this time around. Let’s see what happens next.

    Oh, just to reassure everyone, fortunately (on this occasion we can use that word) the Italian political system is so unstable that governments have only lasted 1.11 years on average since the end of WWII. It’s very unlikely that the right-wing coalition led by the Neofascist Fratelli d’Italia will be an exception.

  12. Fresh news about the Italian election, from an Italian perspective, here:
    https://www.repubblica.it/

    One important result within the otherwise victorious right-wing of politics: the fall of the Lega Nord. That’s relevant because it will give an incentive to their leader, Salvini, to flex his muscles against Meloni, to show that the Lega is still relevant and will regain relative power in due course. Great recipe for instability and for a short life for this government….

  13. “Socrates says:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 6:19 am
    Ven

    There is a lot of study of the “authoritarian mindset” in the far left and far right. The psychology of both groups is identical, they simply have different motivations. They care about power not principles. Easy to switch.”

    Indeed, Socrates. I invite everybody to check the “Horseshoe Theory” of political distribution:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory


  14. 10:56am With 51% counted in the Senate, the right leads by 43.6-27.4, with 14.8% Five Stars and 7.9% centrists. The Chamber count is well behind at 27%. The right is winning a landslide in the FPTP seats.

    See election map of Italy. It is all light blue (i.e. far-right parties lead) except a couple of places.
    Since 37% of seats in Chamber are elected by FPTP, we can assume that far-right has already achieved the goal of 30 of the 50% seats in Chamber and about 50% of PR seats i.e. 31% of 63% seats.
    So 30+31= 61% , which is close to 2/3 majority.

  15. Looking at Italian politics , it seems Brothers of Italy is in a Right Wing Coalition (An Australian equivalent would be the LNP and One Nation joining forces). I wonder why the far right did well in Italy now despite not being in refugee crisis now unlike late 2010s?

  16. The Euro has crapped itself. It is now at 96 US cents compared to parity less than a week ago. So of this might be reflective of the pound which plunged to a record low (breaking the 1985 record) and is head towards parity with the USD. It had been as high as $4.5 in the past.

  17. “Marh says:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 12:43 pm
    Looking at Italian politics , it seems Brothers of Italy is in a Right Wing Coalition (An Australian equivalent would be the LNP and One Nation joining forces). I wonder why the far right did well in Italy now despite not being in refugee crisis now unlike late 2010s?”

    Just looking at who lost votes and who gained them compared to the previous general election, it’s clear that:
    a) The Social Democratic PD went very slightly up.
    b) The Neofascist F. d’I. went very significantly up.
    c) Both the right-wing Lega and Berlusconi went down.
    e) But the one that went massively down was the populist M5S.

    So, the right seems to have become more radicalised, but more importantly, the populists seem to have become disappointed with the progressive side of politics and shifted to the far right (historically, Mussolini rose to power standing on a big populist wave for law-and-order and nationalism, let’s not forget that).

    So, Italian politics, that in the past was controlled by a highly ideological electorate…. is now being driven by the populist voters. The ideologist voters seem to be so disappointed/depressed that may choose not to vote, alongside those who couldn’t care less because “all politicians are just the same”. The populists just vote for those who say the things that they want to hear.

  18. “Brazilian presidential elections: October 2 and 30 (if necessary)”..

    Oh yes, and let’s not forget that one. If Lula wins, the result could massively change the South American political landscape and shake-up the international Neoliberal-Populists….

    With Bolsonaro joining Trump, Johnson, Morrison into political oblivion, the Populist Path to Neoliberalism may suffer a big blow (Italy notwithstanding).

  19. Am I correct in saying that media went bananas when Greece voted for far-left party about 10 years ago but seem to be ok with far-right capturing power in Italy, which is much more important player in EU, G7 and NATO?

  20. The big question is if Lula wins, will Bolsonaro go quietly or do a Trump and attempt to circumvent the democratic result by attempting to overthrow the government?

  21. The reason why Bolsonaro won in 2018 was due to Lula being imprisoned at the time and their alternative was ineffective in gaining support. Plus Brazil has compulsory elections so voters had no choice to vote and many probably viewed Bolsonaro has the lesser of the evils. If Lula wasn’t imprisoned in 2018, he would have most likely won due to his policies as a President during the 2000s

  22. “Vensays:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 2:36 pm
    Am I correct in saying that media went bananas when Greece voted for far-left party about 10 years ago but seem to be ok with far-right capturing power in Italy, which is much more important player in EU, G7 and NATO?”…

    I think you are correct. The Greek left-wing Syryza government started by challenging the Neoliberal orthodoxy. I recall that their initial finance minister was Yanis Varoufakis (who taught at the U. of Sydney for some time), a supporter of the anti-Neoliberal Modern Monetary Theory. That anti-Neoliberalism of course sparked a massive reaction form the Neoliberal media. Meloni at al. in Italy, on the other hand, are promising to reinforce Neoliberalism with an added authoritarian style… that’s music coming from heaven for the usual Neoliberal controllers of the media.

  23. “B.S. Fairman says:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 2:38 pm
    The big question is if Lula wins, will Bolsonaro go quietly or do a Trump and attempt to circumvent the democratic result by attempting to overthrow the government?”…

    Unlike the US, Brazil has already experienced classic coups and a nasty military dictatorship. I seriously doubt that Bolsonaro will have any chance of dragging Brazil into a situation calling for another coup. It hasn’t happened in other South American countries that have gone through similar coup experiences in the 20th century, and they have Progressive governments right now. The trick is to abandon the old Marxist rhetoric and make clear that what you want to do is to reform capitalism in the Social Democratic way, so that the poor have a better go and can in fact join the productive activities of the country.

  24. Marh

    “ I wonder why the far right did well in Italy now despite not being in refugee crisis now unlike late 2010s?”

    My take (we’re in Italy now) is that they’ve had enough after 12 years and also, immigrants are such an easy target.

  25. Thomas Fazi (self-described socialist) on Giorgia Meloni :

    > To put it starkly, Italy is no longer a democracy — it’s an appendage to the EU empire. There’s really no other way of describing a system where democratically unaccountable institutions, such as the European Commission and ECB, are able to arbitrarily decide the policies of elected governments or even forcibly remove them from office. So citizens can hardly be blamed for thinking that voting is, ultimately, pointless.

    > Parties are perfectly aware of this, but are unwilling to admit it to voters. And no one is more aware of it than Giorgia Meloni. She knows very well that Italy is not a sovereign nation, and that winning an election is only part of the effort. Having the support of the European (and American) establishment is just as important, if she wants to remain in power.

    > This is why she has gone to great lengths in recent months to dispel concerns about the party’s neo-fascist roots, and to express her wholehearted support for the European Union, the Euro-Atlantic partnership and Nato, including voting for sending weapons to Ukraine. Indeed, the first two points of the centre-right coalition’s agenda are the “full adherence to the European integration process” and “respect for Italy’s international alliances”.

    https://unherd.com/2022/08/is-giorgia-meloni-an-eu-puppet/

    So Fazi, an informed commentator on European politics, doesn’t see her election as that big a deal. Little will change; the EU has Italy’s sovereignty almost fully neutered and their political class left effectively powerless to escape the EU’s control. As von der Leyen very transparently hinted at just recently.

    Amongst all the typical bedwetting I see in this thread, there’s the one insightful comment from B.S. Fairman about the rapidly escalating currency crisis in Europe. That, and the related rapidly increasing spread between German and Italian bonds, is what people should really be worrying about. Not some newly elected powerless Italian PM.

  26. Looking at short-term causes, Brothers of Italy under Giorgia Meloni did well because they were neither tainted with the government just fallen (overall not an unpopular government, but that still left plenty of opposition), nor with those who pulled the plug on the coalition.

    Brilliantly illustrated by the fact that one member of the right-wing coalition who was recently in government but also was one of those to pull the plug – Matteo Salvini’s ‘The League’ – had a sharp fall in support although they will return to government on Meloni’s coattails.

  27. Honest Bastard’s quote above has some prescience, in the sense that this election result isn’t the earth-mover the media want you to believe with their sensationalism.

    The very best bit about this result that I can see, is that Salvini’s The League fell so sharply in support.

    Taking Meloni at her word, she is resolute in support of the Western coalition in favour of Ukraine and against Russia – whereas Salvini seems to have motives to keep up tacit support for Russia and has been bleating against the sanctions repeatedly.

    It’s a real relief that Salvini’s influence is at least somewhat weakened – though I expect he’ll attempt to knife Meloni in the back at some point for political gain. He has form.

  28. “Honest Bastard says:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 6:40 pm
    More (recent) Thomas Fazi :

    > Europe is looking at years of economic contraction, inflation, deindustrialisation, declining living standards, mass impoverishment, and shortages. It’s time for the European working classes to mobilise to stop this madness.”

    The European masses are mobilising, after years of economic contraction since Neoliberalism started to fall apart with the GFC in 2008,…. but Europeans are leaning to Fascism as a seviour, not Marxism.

    Inflation and shortages are recent phenomena and they have been affected by causes that will come and go: Covid, the war in Ukraine. If the radical left is hoping that inflation will pave the way for their resurgence, good luck, because the Neoliberals are expecting the same for themselves (hoping to repeat their good fortune of the late 1970s-early 1980s), and they have the support of the radical right.

    Expecting that Europe will “de-industrialise” is complete nonsense!

    The challenge for the European Social Democrats is to strongly abandon Neoliberalism once and for all. That will allow them to reactivate the EU economy, create jobs, increase government support for those who need help, and return to normality after Covid and Putin’s idiocy in Ukraine finally come to an end (I doubt that Putin and his poorly trained -especially the new recruits that are coming – and poorly supplied occupation army will survive the coming Ukrainian winter).

  29. Will Meloni going to be a true far right president or would she have to tone down her rhetoric to more like a conservative faction of the centre right (more like Poland and perhaps Boris Johnson) due to the centre-right coalition.

  30. AB:

    7am Tuesday The right coalition won 237 of the 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the left coalition 85, the Five Stars 52, centrists 21 and others five. In the Senate, the right coalition won 115 of the 200 seats, the left coalition 44, the Five Stars 28, centrists nine and others four. That gives the right coalition 59% of seats in the Chamber and 57.5% in the Senate.

    I predicted yesterday that far-right will get 61% seats in Chamber , they got 59%.

    Vensays:
    Monday, September 26, 2022 at 11:14 am

    10:56am With 51% counted in the Senate, the right leads by 43.6-27.4, with 14.8% Five Stars and 7.9% centrists. The Chamber count is well behind at 27%. The right is winning a landslide in the FPTP seats.

    See election map of Italy. It is all light blue (i.e. far-right parties lead) except a couple of places.
    Since 37% of seats in Chamber are elected by FPTP, we can assume that far-right has already achieved the goal of 30 of the 50% seats in Chamber and about 50% of PR seats i.e. 31% of 63% seats.
    So 30+31= 61% , which is close to 2/3 majority

  31. I am predicting that the newly elected Italian government will last atleast 3 years because of its inbuilt stability of far-right wingers.
    They have another Mussolini (a fascist leader) after 100 years.
    Who is so called modern Hilter lurking in Germany? Current Germany’s Chancellor net approval rating is -42%.
    The only saving for French President Macron is that there will not be any National elections for another 5 1/2 years. Currently, his net approval rating is -31% and he is presiding over a minority government..
    But Italian election result will give a lot of heart to far-right in France. Will we see a Le Pen as in 5 1/2 years

  32. Meloni is no Mussolini!

    The jury’s still out on where her true instincts lie, as well as her overall competence, but her far-rightness seems massively overegged and is in fact much more to do with cultural soundbites to gain support rather than having positions on key policies (economy, defence etc) that are outside the mainstream.

    Now Salvini. . . him in charge would be a MUCH bigger worry.

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