(Bloomberg) — The right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party neared a landmark level of support, registering 49.8% of voter approval for Italy’s Sept. 25 election, in a survey by the Tecne research institute.
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A strong election result by Meloni’s bloc could see it garner enough votes in parliament to reach a two-thirds majority. That could allow the right to push through changes to the constitution, possibly including enhanced powers for the prime minister’s office or direct election of the country’s president.
The poll, which measured voter support for the election to the country’s lower house of parliament, placed the Democratic party-led center-left bloc at 30% and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement — once the country’s leading party — at 10.2%. A recently formed centrist grouping was at 4.8%.
The right-wing coalition, comprised of Meloni’s party plus Matteo Salvini’s League and ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, has steadily gained ground after the Democrat-led bloc failed to widen its support by pulling in centrist forces. Brothers of Italy polled at 24.3% in the survey, leading all single parties.
Meloni, speaking in an interview with UK weekly The Spectator, signaled that she would view a landslide victory as a mandate to amend the constitution, calling Italy’s current election system “politically fragile and therefore unstable.”
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