Italian Government Ratings Slip on Ballot Chaos
March 9th, 2010
The Italian government’s approval rating slumped by four percentage points ahead of this month’s regional elections due to chaos surrounding the registration of its candidates in two key regions, a poll showed yesterday.
The survey by pollsters Ispo conducted on March 3-4, published in Corriere della Sera newspaper, showed the government’s approval rating fell to 39% from 43% in early February, one of its lowest levels.
Its approval briefly hit a high of 50.4% in December in an outpouring of sympathy for Berlusconi after he was attacked by a mentally disturbed man after a rally in Milan.
“The convulsions of recent days regarding the presentation of lists for regional elections have negatively influenced the government’s popularity,” wrote Ispo’s Renato Mannehimer.
Bureaucratic mix-ups in registering candidates for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party in Lombardy and Lazio meant they were dropped this week from the ballot sheet for the March 28-29 polls.
The elections in 13 of Italy’s 20 regions are regarded as a key test for Berlusconi after a year plagued by scandals.
The 73-year-old premier called an emergency cabinet on Friday which passed a decree instructing judges how to deal with electoral appeals, in a bid to reinstate his candidates.
The move prompted protests by the opposition and civil rights groups on Saturday, which accused the government of tampering with electoral rules ahead of the elections.
Hours later, a Milan court reinstated Lombardy Governor Roberto Formigoni, a senior PDL member, to the ballot. It was not clear whether the decree played any part in the decision.
Yesterday’s poll, however, was not a measure of voting intentions. The government is still expected to perform well at the polls as surveys show the opposition has lower approval.
Mannheimer said the government’s waning popularity had not translated into a boost for the centre-left opposition. Instead, it spelt a sense of disillusionment with the political class.
The slide in approval was most marked among the government’s own voters: for PDL supporters it fell to 76% from 93% in February, while among backers of its Northern League coalition partner it fell to 57% from 83.
Yesterday’s opinion poll also showed that 58% of Italians disagreed with the decision by state broadcaster Rai – whose board is controlled by the government – to suspend talk shows until after the elections.
Media mogul Berlusconi, who owns three of Italy’s four private channels, has attacked Rai for criticising his government.
Story from Reuters
