In Italy’s poorer south, populist party woos angry voters
NAPLES, Italy — In the Naples suburb of Torre del Greco, a port town at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, voters are steaming.
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 per cent 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.