Italy's centre-left boosted by electoral pact

Forza Italia is part of an alliance with the League and far-right Brothers of Italy party that is seen on course for electoral victory. Berlusconi and League leader Matteo Salvini have been very close to Putin in the past and Italian newspapers last week reported that both their parties have had contacts with the Russian embassy in recent weeks despite the war in Ukraine.

Italy's Democratic Party (PD) formed an alliance with a smaller centrist group on Tuesday in a move seen as boosting the centre-left's chances of preventing a right-wing triumph in an election next month. The ballot is set for Sept. 25 and polls show a conservative alliance is on course for victory, with the far-right Brothers of Italy set to be the largest single party. Italy's election law favors parties that form broad alliances.

The PD, the largest party on the center-left has agreed to team up with the Azione party. PD leader Enrico Letta told a news conference that the alliance made the election an open race and said the partners were open to drawing in other groups in Italy's fragmented political landscape.

Azione and its existing +Europa ally poll only around 5-7% in surveys, but two senior members of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia defected to Azione last week, saying Italy's conservative bloc had become too extremist. The PD and Azione pledged to stick to the foreign policy of Prime Minister Mario Draghi in support of Ukraine and to meet targets required to access billions of euros in funding from the European Union.

"The elections will be a choice between an Italy that is one of the great countries of Europe and an Italy allied with (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orban and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," the center-left allies said in a statement. Forza Italia is part of an alliance with the League and the far-right Brothers of Italy party that is seen on course for electoral victory.

Berlusconi and League leader Matteo Salvini have been very close to Putin in the past and Italian newspapers last week reported that both their parties have had contact with the Russian embassy in recent weeks despite the war in Ukraine. Berlusconi has denied talking to the Russian ambassador while the League has denied any wrongdoing.

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