{"id":55334,"date":"2018-03-05T11:08:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T06:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=55334"},"modified":"2018-03-05T11:08:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T06:08:47","slug":"italy-faces-political-gridlock-as-5-star-surges-in-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=55334","title":{"rendered":"Italy faces political gridlock as 5-Star surges in election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rome March 5 (TNS):<\/strong> Italy faces a prolonged period of political instability after voters delivered a hung parliament in Sunday\u2019s election, spurning traditional parties and flocking to anti-establishment and far-right groups in record numbers.<\/p>\n

With half the ballot counted, it looked almost certain that none of Italy\u2019s three main factions would be able to rule alone and there was little prospect of a return to mainstream government, giving the European Union a new headache to handle.<\/p>\n

Scenarios now include the creation of a more euro-skeptic coalition, which would likely challenge EU budget restrictions and be little interested in further European integration, or swift new elections to try to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n

A rightist alliance including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) emerged with the biggest bloc of votes, ahead of the anti-system 5-Star Movement, which saw its support soar to become Italy\u2019s largest single party.<\/p>\n

Despite overseeing a modest economic recovery, the ruling centre-left coalition came a distant third, hit by widespread anger over persistent poverty, high unemployment and an influx of more than 600,000 migrants over the past four years.<\/p>\n

The full result is not due until much later on Monday.<\/p>\n

A prolonged political stalemate could make heavily indebted Italy the focus of market concern in Europe, now that the threat of German instability has receded after the revival on Sunday of a grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel.<\/p>\n

The euro dipped in Asia early on Monday and remained prone to volatility as investors awaited final results.<\/p>\n

\u201cItaly is far from having sorted its long-standing problems, and now it will have new ones. Be prepared for long and complex negotiations that will take months,\u201d said Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at the Italian Treasury.<\/p>\n

Berlusconi\u2019s centre-right alliance was seen taking around 37 percent of the vote and in a bitter personal defeat for the billionaire media magnate, his Forza Italia party was overtaken by its ally, the far-right, anti-immigrant League.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first words: THANK YOU,\u201d League leader Matteo Salvini tweeted. His party, which campaigned on a fiercely anti-migrant ticket, looked set to win more than 17 percent of the vote against just 4 percent at the last national election in 2013.<\/p>\n

But the biggest winner on Sunday was the 5-Star Movement, which was predicted to have won a third of all votes cast, up from 25 percent last time around, putting it in the driving seat in any future coalition talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody will be able to govern without the 5-Star Movement,\u201d said senior party member Riccardo Fraccaro.\u201cWe will assume the responsibility to build this government, but in a different way, talking with all the parties about what this country needs.\u201d TNS\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rome March 5 (TNS): Italy faces a prolonged period of political instability after voters delivered a hung parliament in Sunday\u2019s election, spurning traditional parties and flocking to anti-establishment and far-right groups in record numbers. With half the ballot counted, it looked almost certain that none of Italy\u2019s three main factions would be able to rule […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[965],"class_list":["post-55334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-rome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55336,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55334\/revisions\/55336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}