The ruling Democratic Party (PD) of
Premier Paolo Gentiloni came out first with a 0.6% margin over
the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S) in a survey on
voters' preferences by polling institute Ixè that was published
Friday by Raitre's Agorà program.
The poll was carried out right after local-election runoffs
on Sunday and showed that the PD lost 1.9% in voters'
preferences to drop to 27.4% while the M5S of leader Beppe
Grillo was down 1.2% to 26.8%, compared to a poll carried out by
Ixè at the end of May.
Meanwhile the anti-migrant Northern League (LN) and the
conservative Forza Italia (FI) party of Silvio Berlusconi, the
big winners of the runoffs, gained respectively 1.4% to reach
14% and 0.7% to 13.7%.
Confidence in Gentiloni's government was stable over the past
month at 34% while the leader of the ruling Democratic Party,
ex-premier Matteo Renzi, lost 2% over the past month, down to
28% from 30%, the survey said.
A reported 23% of those polled said they had confidence in
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, 17% in Berlusconi and the
leader of the rightwing Brothers of Italy (Fdl) Giorgia Meloni,
15% in Grillo and 20% in M5S Deputy Lower House Speaker Luigi Di
Maio.
The center-right bloc made up of Berlusconi's Forza Italia,
the Northern League (LN) and the Brothers of Italy party was the
big winner of local-election run-offs in many Italian towns and
cities on Sunday.
The center-right won most of the contests in the 22
provincial capitals, with the center-left losing strongholds
such as Genoa and Pistoia.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) was absent from
most run-offs after performing badly in the first round.
The center-left's defeats led to criticism of Matteo Renzi.
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