ROME – Italians went to the polls to elite mayors in cities and towns across the country, with Premier Silvio Berlusconi hoping to turn finish in his electoral defence of Milan.
The voting Sun and weekday is full with potential risks for the government's stability and Berlusconi's leadership. A finish in city would be a onerous blow to the 74-year-old leader and would probable release boost tensions with his government allies.
The execute has been weakened by stimulate scandals, attrited discover by jural woes and besieged by sorry allies, including the Northern League, on whose hold the government depends.
Berlusconi was outlay the weekend outside of the public eye in his Sardinian villa.
More than 5.5 meg Italians are eligible to patch ballots in nearly 90 run-offs to elite mayors and another topical representatives across Italy. But in semipolitical terms it every boils downbound to the contests in city and, to a lesser extent, Naples.
The conservatives hit held Milan, Italy's playing and style top and the center of Berlusconi's business, for nearly 20 years. The city is also a crucial noesis humble of Berlusconi's important government party, the Northern League.
But in the prototypal ammo of voting digit weeks ago, Berlusconi's candidate, functionary Mayor Letizia Moratti, trailed behindhand her center-left opponent, Giuliano Pisapia, by more than 6 proportionality points.
In Naples, the another key race, Berlusconi's politician Gianni Lettieri is seen as a front-runner after he won the prototypal ammo — though he unsuccessful to entrepot the 50 percent-plus-one proportionality of the vote needed to avoid a run-off. His contestant is a past magistrate, Luigi de Magistris, who promises to process recycling to support assist Naples' long-standing substance collection crisis.
The center-left has long controlled city but Berlusconi has a chance to clutch it as Neapolitans might penalise topical administrators for imperfectness to cipher the substance difficulty and modification the city's broad unemployment rate.
But Berlusconi's possess popularity has been sagging, amid the country's scheme woes and his possess individualized jural problems.
In April, he went on effort on charges that he paying for stimulate with an underage African harlot and tried to covered it up by using his office. This ammo of topical voting is his prototypal electoral test since the effort opened. Another three cases — every attendant to his playing — are astir against him in Milan.
The execute has denied every the charges.
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