Naples, Italy
Local seamen have jobs lost to foreigners willing to work for lower pay. The town is without a mayor, who was arrested months ago in a kickback scandal. Some 13,000 small investors lost their savings in the bankruptcy of a shipping company.
Those woes only aggravate the daily difficulties of life in Italy’s underdeveloped south, where youth unemployment runs 50 percent or higher, and the jobless rate among all ages is nearly double that in the relatively affluent north. It’s also an area long influenced by organized crime syndicates, where prosecutors say votes have been exchanged for guarantees of lucrative public work contracts.
Whichever party can convert voters’ palpable anger in the south into support in Italy’s March 4 election could very well determine who governs Italy. A few dozen southern races, including in the Campania region embracing Naples, are critical.
The maverick 5-Star Movement, a populist phenomenon that bills itself as the antidote to establishment politics, appears positioned to benefit from citizen outrage as it aims to enter Italy’s national government for the first time.
Analysts predict the March 4 vote will produce three blocs: the 5-Star Movement, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s alliance of centrist and right-wing groups and a center-left group led by former Premier Matteo Renzi.
In opinion polls, the 5-Stars consistently rank as the most popular choice of those saying they’ll vote. But they also appear far short of clinching the absolute majority needed to form a government. And because they have rejected any post-election deal to join a coalition government, they risk not getting into power.
Supporters view the 5-Stars as a long-awaited opportunity to break with Italy’s established parties, like Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, which has done well previously in the south but which they say failed to help the region develop.