Thread by @Europa_Insider

🇮🇹 Italy holds its general election today. 51 million people are eligible to vote. Polling stations opened at 7AM (CEST) and will close at 11PM.

We will be providing full coverage over the course of the day. #Affluenza #Italia #ElezioniPolitiche2022

🇮🇹 Matteo Salvini casts his vote in Milan. #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Giuseppe Conte, leader of the Five Star Movement and former PM, casts his ballot in Rome. His party aims to edge out Lega for third-place. #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Enrico Letta, leader of centre-left PD, voted in his seat of Testaccio in Rome. #Affluenza #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Many non-Italians are wondering why Salvini's party Lega has plummeted so much in the last few years, down from 38% in polls recorded in late 2019 to now an average of 12% in the run-up to today's election, so here's an answer we've written:

After winning the European elections in Italy by a wide margin in 2019, achieving 34% of all ballots cast, Matteo Salvini (then deputy PM of a M5S-Lega coalition government), who was riding on a wave of personal popularity at the time, took a gamble and decided to collapse...

... the country's government with the hopes that President Mattarella would dissolve parliament and announce snap elections in which his party would win and with Salvini becoming Prime Minister.

Salvini's bet, however, failed and M5S decided to form a new government with...

... centre-left PD. Many Italians saw Salvini's gamble as opportunistic & selfish and were already generally satisfied with Giuseppe Conte's performance as PM. Additionally, his failure to secure new elections gave the impression he had poor judgement in the eyes of the public...

The party's support plummeted even further after they "sold out" (as many people felt) by joining former EU banker Mario Draghi's government of unity in 2021, which included many establishment parties and was led by the man Lega spent much of their earlier years railing against.

The compromises made by Lega during this time led to most of their core base switching over to Giorgia Meloni's party Fratelli d'Italia in the last two years.

🇮🇹 Silvio Berlusconi arrived in Milan with his girlfriend to cast his vote.

🇮🇹 Giorgia Meloni announced she would postpone her vote until after 10PM tonight.

🇮🇹 Initial exit polls on RaiNews24 channel | Party vote. #Affluenza #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Initial exit polls on RaiNews24 channel | Coalition vote. #Affluenza #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Initial exit polls, Sky TG24 channel | Party vote. #Affluenza #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Initial exit polls, Sky TG24 channel | Coalition vote. #Affluenza #ElezioniPolitiche2022 #ItalyElections

🇮🇹 Admin's analysis:

FdI: Performed as expected
PD: Performed as expected
M5S: Performed better than expected
LEGA: Performed worse than expected
A/IV: Performed as expected
FI: Performed as expected

🇮🇹 Salvini thanks his supporters for voting for his party, says the right-wing bloc is in a "clear advantage."

🇺🇸🇮🇹 CNN: Meloni will be the premier furthest to the right since Mussolini.

🇭🇺🇮🇹 Balázs Orbán, a senior advisor to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, extended his congratulations to Giorgia Meloni and her right-wing allies who are set to form Italy's next government.

— "Congratulations Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi for today's elections! In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to the challenges of Europe. Long live the Italian-Hungarian friendship."

🇮🇹 Italian Election | Senate | 13307/60399 polling stations counted:

FdI — Nationalist: 26.5%
PD — Centre-left: 20.2%
M5S — Big-tent: 14.4%
LEGA — Nationalist: 9.2%
FI — Centre-right: 7.9%
A/IV — Liberal: 7.6%
AVS — Left-wing: 3.6%
+E — Centrist: 2.9%

#ElezioniPolitiche2022