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| - The battle for the left-wing bastion of Tuscany in Italy's regional elections was going down to the wire Monday, with exit polls showing the far right and left neck and neck in a ballot that risks weakening an already fragile national government. The two-day vote went ahead despite a threatened resurgence of the coronavirus in Italy, which was the first country in Europe to go into lockdown and is now registering more than 1,500 new cases daily. Ballots were cast nationwide for a referendum on cutting parliament numbers, which was set to pass easily, with an exit poll by Rai national broadcaster predicting around 62 percent for the "yes" vote. But all eyes were on elections held at the same time in seven regions: Campania, Liguria, Marche, Puglia, Tuscany, Valle d'Aosta and Veneto. The high-profile battle is for Tuscany, which has been ruled by the left for 50 years, but may soon be swapping the socialists for far-right leader Matteo Salvini's League party. Exit polls put Eugenio Giani, the candidate for the centre-left, around three percentage points ahead of the League party's Susanna Ceccardi, an MEP who has adopted Salvini's "Italians first" mantra. "It's all to play for," Salvini told a rally near the Leaning Tower of Pisa as he closed his campaign. "The left has underestimated this campaign. It thought it had it in the bag, and that Tuscans would never look to the future". The left is expected to hold Campania in the south, but the coalition of Salvini's League, Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia may well snatch neighbouring Puglia. And the right is set to win easily in its strongholds of Veneto and Liguria, as well as taking the Marche. Such sweeping victories could further fracture the brittle relationship between the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and its ruling partner, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). And it would bolster the right's claim that the uneasy coalition -- not elected, but installed after the previous government collapsed -- is politically weak, and Italy's president should bring forward the 2023 national election. "The atmosphere is very tense," political journalist Raffaele Palumbo told AFP. The PD only narrowly frustrated a League bid in January to take Emilia Romagna, one of its biggest strongholds. Ceccardi, 33, was until recently known only to the inhabitants of Casina, a porticoed town near Pisa, which was the first to turn to the League when she was elected mayor four years ago. Since then, Renaissance art cities from Pisa to Siena have flipped to the right. Roberto Bianchi, contemporary history professor at Florence University, said the right has long tried to woo Tuscany. "In 2000, a frustrated Berlusconi even launched a campaign to 'de-Tuscanise Tuscany'. It was a disaster," he said. "But times have changed. And the left has neglected its own history, its roots, its base," he added. The region has no glaring problems to drive a protest vote -- the health system has performed well during the Covid-19 pandemic, immigrants are well integrated, and the quality of life is high, journalist Palumbo said. But it is not immune to national or international trends, he said, such as the lure of populism. Ceccardi, who has a one-year-old daughter, smiles down from buses and billboards across the region. In sleek television campaign adverts she has urged Tuscans to "choose change". Unlike his rival, the PD's Giani, 61, does not have Salvini's famed communications team -- dubbed "the Beast" -- behind him. Among Giani's pre-vote efforts, the Stampa newspaper pointed out, was a Facebook photo of him stroking a cow. "Salvini's presence is very strong," Palumbo said. "But Giani has spent the last few years as a regional politician going round every single little town, door to door. "He knows everyone, and that could help him". ide/lc
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