Voting intention in the parliamentary elections in Italy 2018

On March 4, 2018 the citizens of Italy went to the ballot box to choose the new members of the Chamber of Deputies and Senators. Roughly two weeks before the election day, the polls were led by the anti-establishment party The Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle), founded in 2009 by an Italian comedian Beppe Grillo. Grillo’s group, supported by 27 percent of the voting population, has overtaken the democratic party (Partito Democratico) in the poll on voters’ intention, resulting five percent ahead of its opposition. The right-wing, eurosceptic and anti-immigrant party Lega Nord ranked fourth, with 13.4 percent of Italians planning to support them in the upcoming election. Anti-establishment and right-wing coalition The results of the election confirmed the leading position of Movimento 5 Stelle and the centre-right block. Over one-third of the citizens’ votes went to The Five Star Movement, whereas about 17 percent of Italians stamped a cross in the voting square of Lega Nord. The support for Partito Democratico turned out lower than predicted by the polls and the party scored 18.7 percent in the ballots. Since no political group reached the majority requested to create the government, the leaders of Five Stars and Lega begun negotiations on a coalition. After about three-month-long discussions the parties came to an agreement and a populist Italian government under the leadership of the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was sworn in on June 1, 2018. Clouds of populism over Europe In the recent years, populism has been gathering steam across the European continent. In 2018, the strongest populist voice could be heard from Hungary, Greece and Poland, where the share of population voting for populist parties reached more than 51 percent. However, the trend has been gaining ground not only in some particular countries – the number of Europeans living in a country with at least one populist in the cabinet increased over thirteen times between 1998 and 2018.

于2018年3月4日，意大利民众齐聚投票站，以选举新一届的下议院议员和参议员。在选举日前的两周左右，由意大利喜剧演员贝佩·格里洛于2009年创立的反体制政党“五星级运动”在民调中领先。格里洛的团体得到了27%选民的拥护，在选民意向民调中超越民主党（Partito Democratico），领先其对手5个百分点。右翼、疑欧派和反移民的北方联盟党（Lega Nord）位列第四，约有13.4%的意大利人计划在即将到来的选举中支持该党。反体制和右翼联盟的选举结果证实了“五星级运动”和中间右翼联盟的领先地位。超过三分之一的公民投票投给了“五星级运动”，而大约17%的意大利人在投票站中为北方联盟党打上了勾选。民主党的支持率低于民调预测，该党在选票中获得了18.7%。由于没有政党达到组建政府所需的多数，五星级运动和北方联盟的领导人开始就联盟进行谈判。经过约三个月的讨论，两党达成协议，并于2018年6月1日，在总理朱塞佩·孔特（Giuseppe Conte）的领导下，宣誓成立了一个民粹主义意大利政府。近年来，民粹主义在欧洲大陆逐渐兴起。2018年，匈牙利、希腊和波兰等地成为了最强烈的民粹主义声音，这些国家投票给民粹主义政党的选民比例超过了51%。然而，这一趋势不仅在某些特定国家蔓延——在1998年至2018年期间，居住在至少有一位民粹主义者在内阁的欧洲国家的人口数量增加了十三倍以上。