The affair of possible Russian campaign funds for Italy’s Lega does not seem politically harmful to the ruling party led by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. According to a poll by Ipsos poll published today, the Lega would win 35.9 percent of the vote in new elections, 2.6 percent more than a June 26 poll.
Thus, the right-wing Lega is by far the strongest individual force in Italy, ahead of the opposition Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD), which has to content itself with 21.6 per cent, according to the opinion poll published today by the Milan daily Corriere della Sera. The Five-Star Movement, allied with the Lega in Rome, scored 17.4 per cent, according to the poll, as in the EU general elections on 26 May.
Investigations of corruption were recorded
The popularity of Salvini has not declined because of the Moscow affair. According to the survey, it is 54 percent, five percent more than in a similar Ipsos poll conducted at the end of June. The popularity of Premier Giuseppe Conte is 58 percent, that of Deputy Prime Minister and five-star boss Luigi Di Maio at 34 percent, according to the Ipsos survey.
Meanwhile, Milan prosecutors have been investigating international corruption against banking expert Francesco Vannucchi, whose apartment near the Tuscan city of Livorno was raided this week. Tested is the material confiscated from Vannucchi and the other two suspects Gianluca Meranda and Gianluca Savoini.
Savoini is Salvini’s former spokesman. All three Italians reportedly debated last October at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow about how millions of dollars could be hidden from Russia to Salvinis Lega. The Milan investigators check if this really happened.
