The centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
on Tuesday approved its lists of candidates for the September 25
general election.
The PD is leading an alliance with the leftwing Italian Left
(SI) party, the ecologist Green Europe (EV) party and the More
Europe (+E) party.
The coalition is currently lagging far behind in opinion polls
to a centre-right bloc led by hard right Brothers of Italy (FdI)
leader Giorgia Melojni, who is projected to be Italy's first
woman and first post-fascist premier.
PD leader and former premier Enrico Letta will head the party
lists for the Lower House in Lombardy and Veneto.
Centrist vote catcher Carlo Cottarelli, a former International
Monetary Fund official, will be the PD list head for the Senate
in Milan.
Microbiologist Andrea Crisanti will spearhead the PD ticket in
Europe.
Senator Monica Cirinnà, who gained popularity with a law
approving civil unions in Italy, pulled her candidacy saying she
had been offered a "losing seat".
Former sports minister Luca Lotti was excluded form the lists
and accused the PD leadership of "hiding behind cowardly
excuses".
LOtti has long been close to former PD leader and ex-premier
Matteo Renzi, who split from the PD to form his own centrist
party Italia Viva (IV).
IV, the centrist Azione party of former industry minister Carlo
Calenda and a couple of other tiny centrist parties, are running
as a 'third pole' of Italian politics on September 25.
The FdI is running alongside the nationalist League party of
former anti-migrant interior minister Matteo Salvini and the
centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party of former three-time prime
minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi.
The right/centre-right alliance is currently projected to get
more than 45% of the vote and win clear and easy majorities in
both houses of parliament.
That would probably propel the 45-year-old Meloni into the
premiership as FdI are polling at around 24% with the League on
12.5% and FI on 8%.
Meloni last week disavowed Fascism and its "ignominious" racist
laws in a video to the foreign press.
She said her party, whose European allies include Hungarian
rightist premier Viktor Orban, Poland's national-conservative
Law and Justice party and Spain's post-Francoist Vox, shares
values with Britain's Conservatives, America's Republicans and
Likud in Israel.
Letta then gave the foreign press a video message in the same
three languages as Meloni, English, French and Spanish, and
accused her of "hiding the truth".
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