By Angelo Amante
ROME (Reuters) -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her right-wing allies on Monday looked on course to narrowly win a regional election in northwestern Liguria, held after a graft scandal ousted the outgoing conservative governor.
Projections by public broadcaster RAI showed Marco Bucci, mayor of the regional capital Genoa, on course to secure 48.4% of the vote with his centre-left opponent and former minister Andrea Orlando on 47.6%.
A victory would mark the latest in a series of regional election wins for Meloni, days after she celebrated her first two years in office with a solid lead in national opinion polls. Two more regional contests will be held next month.
It would also be a blow for Italy’s opposition if it failed to snatch a victory to cement the fractious alliance built around the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the left-leaning Five Star Movement.
The vote, which took place on Sunday and Monday, was triggered by the resignation in July of former regional president Giovanni Toti, who quit after being arrested on charges of corruption.
Toti denied wrongdoing but struck a plea bargain to end the case against him. Under Italian law, plea bargaining is not an admission of guilt but is subject to approval by a pre-trial judge.
Despite the looming defeat, PD was seen as the single most popular party in Liguria with over 27% of the votes, while Meloni’s Brothers of Italy looked set to garner around 14%, ahead of its rightwing allies the League and Forza Italia.
Turnout was just under 46%, down from 53.4% in the last regional vote in 2020.
Meloni’s bloc currently controls 14 out of 20 Italian regions and has secured a number of wins since she took office, losing only to the centre-left opposition a tight race in the Sardinia island in February.
(Reporting by Angelo AmanteEditing by Alvise Armellini and Christina Fincher)
