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Why the Italian left looks doomed in this weekend’s elections

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The prospects for the left in the upcoming Italian general election do not look good, divided as it is between the mainstream Democratic party (PD) and a variety of radical left groupings, many of which have come under the umbrella of Liberi e Uguali (Free and Equal), headed by senate president Pietro Grasso. The last opinion poll put the PD on 22.7% and Free and Equal on 5.4%. The electoral system, which distributes over a third of the seats according to first-past-the-post, will almost certainly ensure that the left pays dearly for its divisions.

From one point of view, the unpopularity of the PD – which has been the mainstay of the governing coalition and which reached a high of 41% in the 2014 European election – is puzzling. The Italian economy is picking up. The government has received praise from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and in other quarters for a series of structural reforms deemed essential to raising productivity and investment. The prime minister, the PD’s Paolo Gentiloni, is the most popular of the major parties’ spokespersons.



Source :- theguardian
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