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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Italian government sets parliamentary election for March 4

Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni speaks during the traditional year-end news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017. (Domenico Stinellis / Associated Press)
By Colleen Barry Associated Press

MILAN – The Italian government on Thursday set March 4 as the date for electing the next parliament, formally launching what is shaping up to be an especially bruising campaign.

The general election was scheduled after President Sergio Mattarella dissolved the sitting legislature, following a meeting in Rome with Premier Paolo Gentiloni and the leaders of both houses.

During his end-of-the-year news conference earlier Thursday, Gentiloni counted the Democratic Party-led government’s survival through a full five-year term – albeit under the leadership of three premiers – as an accomplishment.

A coalition led by the Democrats received 29.55 percent of the vote in the last election, held in February 2013, a razor’s edge ahead of the center-right at 29.18 percent. Enrico Letta led the government after the then-party leader, Pierluigi Bersani, was unable to form a government.

Letta was ousted 10 months later in a brash political maneuver by Matteo Renzi, who in turn resigned last December after staking his government on a constitutional referendum that failed. Renzi ceded the government to Gentiloni, his foreign minister.

With the upcoming vote also shaping up to be tight, Gentiloni warned against fear-mongering.

“The more we have an election campaign that veers from the easy sale of fear, the better it will be for the country,” he said.

The governing Democratic Party splintered and weakened following Renzi’s resignation a year ago. The Forza Italia party led by former three-time Premier Silvio Berlusconi is locked in a struggle with Matteo Salvini’s anti-migrant, anti-euro League for dominance of the center-right.

While Berlusconi cannot run for office due to a tax-fraud conviction, Salvini has set himself up as his party’s premier candidate, if the newly rebranded League comes out of the election on top.

The vulnerability of the traditional political powers is giving further impetus to the populist 5-Star Movement, which remains Italy’s most popular single party but has refused to join a national coalition with any force.

Political analyst Wolfango Piccoli said the likely outcome of the next election is a hung parliament. Polls show the center-right with 37 percent to 39 percent of the vote, the 5-Star Movement with just below 30 percent and the Democratic Party sliding to less than one-quarter, he said.

Long negotiations resulting in “at best a patched-up deal involving several parties” would follow under that scenario, Piccoli said, making “the outlook for reform negative.”

Gentiloni’s government comes to an end with Italy’s economy experiencing higher-than-forecast annual growth of 1.5 percent of GDP and much of the country on a financial upswing.

He cited domestic achievements of his year as head of government, including passage of a law recognizing same-sex unions and another on living wills. He acknowledged the defeat of legislation that would have accelerated citizenship for immigrant children born and raised in Italy.

A key issue in the upcoming campaign will be Europe’s migrant crisis. Italy, one of the first stops for new arrivals, has struggled to cope with the thousands who fled poverty, conflict and oppression, mostly from the Middle East and Africa.

On that front, Gentiloni’s government opened a humanitarian corridor to allow a very limited number of migrants in Libya to come to Italy by plane, avoiding the deadly Mediterranean Sea passage, for the first time. He also has announced a mission to Niger, a major center for migrant trafficking, to help limit migrant arrivals in Libya.

Pressed several times on whether he would consider continuing on as premier in the new government, Gentiloni deferred, saying he hoped the Democratic Party would come out on top. He also noted that the role of premier typically goes to the leader of the party, who is now Renzi.