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Italy's Coalition Government Fends off Salvini

Jamie Dettmer

   Italy's fragile coalition government breathed a collective sigh of
   relief Tuesday after voters denied the country's populist leader Matteo
   Salvini the major electoral breakthrough he was seeking in hotly
   contested regional elections.

   The center-left Democratic Party, PD, managed a comfortable victory in
   Tuscany, a region the left has ruled without interruption since
   regional governments were first elected in 1970, frustrating Salvini in
   taking the biggest prize in the elections for the governments of seven
   regions and a thousand towns and cities the length and breadth of
   Italy.

   Tuscany is the buckle of the left's so-called "red belt" and was
   targeted by Salvini's populist Lega party. Salvini himself campaigned
   tirelessly in Tuscany in the run-up to the polls, predicting his party
   could win the wealthy region behind his handpicked candidate for the
   governorship, the telegenic 33-year-old Susanna Ceccardi, a former
   mayor.

   With the regional counts still to be finalized Tuesday, the Democrats
   looked sure to hold three regions it ruled before. Along with Tuscany,
   incumbent PD governors were on course to win re-election in the
   southern regions of Campania and Apulia.

   The leaders of the key government parties of Prime Minister's Giuseppe
   Conte's coalition government, which is made up of the Democratic Party
   and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, M5S, along with some other
   smaller groups, were quick to celebrate Tuesday.

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