Italian upstart party does well in local polls

Local run-off elections in Italy delivered a surprise victory Monday in northern Parma for the candidate of the upstart populist Five Star Movement. The party headed by comedian Beppe Grillo, which notched up a strong performance in the first round, scored another success, taking Parma with 60 percent of the vote, according to initial estimates. Provisional results showed that the centre-left candidate for mayor in Parma, Vincenzo Bernazzoli, lost to Federico Pizzarotti, the Five Star candidate, who scored 60 percent. The second round saw a low turnout of 54 percent, 13 percentage points lower than for the first round two weeks ago, according to preliminary estimates. Pizzarotti vowed shortly before the polls closed that he would "act in the name of transparency ... through a common agreement with the citizens." Four millions voters were eligible to cast ballots in the polls, which were expected to reflect widespread disaffection with mainstream politics amid recession. In the Sicilian capital Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, spokesman of the left-wing Italy of Values party and a strong opponent of the Mafia, swept to victory over the centre-left Democratic Party candidate with more than 70 percent of the vote. The port city of Genoa also swung leftward, with centre-left candidate Marco beating the centrist Enrico Musso. The first round earlier this month handed a shock defeat to former centre-right prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and the Northern League, which were in a governing coalition until November 2011. The first round, with 940 local councils at stake, also saw a high rate of abstention. The results were interpreted as reflecting mounting anxiety over the crisis and the tough austerity diet being imposed by the technocrat government of Prime Minister Mario Monti. Berlusconi's party, which came top in the 2008 general elections with 38 percent of the vote, found itself pushed out of the second round in several cities, notably Palermo. The Northern League also suffered humiliating defeats in its northern fiefdoms after a scandal over millions of euros in public subsidies intended to reimburse the party's election costs but used to fund lavish lifestyles for its founder Umberto Bossi and his two sons.