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EU-VOTE-ITALY-MIGRANTS
Salvini’s League triumps in migrant ‘hot spots’
ROME, May 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Matteo Salvini’s far-right League, which
triumphed at the European elections in Italy, did particularly well in
centres seen as migrants ‘hot spots’, including a town held up as a model of
integration.
On Lampedusa, the Italian island closest to the Libyan coast where many
migrant boats arrive, the anti-immigration party pocketed 45.8 percent of the
vote in Sunday’s election.
It also scooped 44 percent of votes in Ventimiglia, where migrants attempt
to cross over into France undetected, and 41 percent in Bardonecchia, the
last station stop for those willing to risk frostbite on the mountain
crossings.
In Calabria, home to the League’s coalition partner — the anti-
establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) — Salvini’s party outdid the
competition in Riace, a town acclaimed by the left as an example of migrant
integration.
Former mayor Domenico Lucano, the man behind the scheme, is being
prosecuted for allegedly aiding illegal immigration.
The League took 30 percent of the votes in the small town, compared to 26
percent for the M5S and 17 percent for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD),
which supports Lucano.
But Lampedusa’s Pietro Bartolo, a doctor who has dedicated years of
service to helping migrants and who ran as a PD candidate for Sicily and the
islands, appeared to have been elected to the European parliament, exit polls
showed.
BSS/AFP/RY/1647 hrs