In Calabria, the ruling coalition in Italy, formed by the populist, center-left M5S and the social-democratic PD, lost, partly, because they were not united. In the traditionally left-leaning Emilia-Romagna, they also presented separated lists. Nevertheless, the PD candidate Stefano Bonaccini (*1967) managed to keep the upper hand.
This had nothing to do with the PDs national performance, where PD and M5S are largely occupied with infighting. Stefano Bonaccini has been governing the Emilia-Romagna region since November 2014. In the January 26, 2020 regional election, his record was acceptable to 51.42% (+2.4% in comparison with 2014) of the 67.7% of voters who went to the polls; this represents a voter turnout increase of 29.9% in comparison with the 2014 regional election!
According to the NYT, Stefano Bonnacini’s approval rating is around 70%. However, the result of 51.42% was partly due to the support of the so-called Sardines movement (Movimento delle Sardine), whose members are opposed to the xenophobe and populist opposition leader Matteo Salvini of the infamous Lega party.
In addition, according to il Fatto Quottidiano, in 2017 and 2018, the regional President Stefano Bonaccini implemented a policy aimed to increase the political and fiscal autonomy of Emilia-Romagna. Above all, the Emilia-Romagna region is an economic powerhouse with companies such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Barilla, Parma ham, Parmesan cheese, etc. The unemployment rate in Emilia-Romagna is currently around 7%, well below Italy’s average.
Matteo Salvini tried everything to win the Emilia-Romagna region. Despite a center-right alliance of his Lega with Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia, Giorgia Meloni’s extreme-right Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) and a few smaller parties, the center-right candidate Lucia Borgonzoni (*1976; Lega) did not manage to win more than 43.63% of the vote, a notable increase of 11.1% in comparison with the center-right’s performance in 2014.
Together with Matteo Salvini, who visited the Emilia-Romagna region many times during the electoral campaign, the other big loser of the 2020 regional election was the former Five-Star-Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, M5S) leader Luigi di Maio, who had stepped down as party leader on January 22, 2020. Instead of fighting the election together with his national coalition partner, the social-democratic PD, Luigi di Maio decided to have his own man in the race. The M5S presidential candidate Simone Benini finished with a laughable, embarassing 3.48% of the vote.
Is the end of the populist M5S approaching? Is the M5S and PD national coalition government near the end? If the two center-left parties do not focus on a few projects with tangible effects for their voters as well as all Italians, they are heading for defeat in the next Italian election with Matteo Salvini as Italy’s next prime minister.
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The photo on top of this page shows the old and new president of the region of Emilia-Romagna: Stefano Bonaccini (PD). Photo copyright: Francesco Pierantoni/Wikipedia.
Article added on January 27, 2020 at 21:41 Italian time.
