Voting in Italy has begun, as polling stations opened on Sunday at 7 am local time to commence the general elections.
Pre-election prognosis and exit polls predict a victory for the right-wing led by Giorgia Meloni, who could become the first woman to hold the country’s top post.
The polling stations would be closed at 11 pm and about 51 million Italian citizens are eligible to vote, including 2.7 million first-time voters, and then they would announce the results.
Voting is also underway in the southern autonomous island of Sicily, as it elects its president and members of its regional assembly.
These general elections would be to vote 600 parliamentarians – 400 deputies and 200 senators. As stated earlier, Italy’s pre-election prognosis favored Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, who could become the country’s first female prime minister, and form the most right-wing government since Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule was overthrown at the end of the war.
Meloni’s alliance, which incorporates Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia parties, is predicted to win a landslide feat, enjoying 20 points advantage over Enrico Letta’s central-left Democratic Party and its supporters.
While Italian parliaments in recent years have seen complex unions between opposing parties that rarely managed to attain a majority, the right-bloc coalition has presented a collective front, with Meloni as its unanimous leader.
