EU Voting Passes Halfway Mark with Slovakia, Italy Joining in
Four days of voting to choose a new European Parliament passed the halfway mark Saturday with Slovakia – shaken by an assassination attempt last month on its premier – and influential Italy joining in.
Most of the European Union’s 27 member countries, including powerhouses France and Germany, go to the polls on Sunday, the final day, with projected overall results due late that evening.
Slovakia’s voters have rallied to the ruling left-wing populist Smer-SD party in the wake of the May 15 shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico, who blamed the attack on the main liberal opposition and its “aggressive and hateful politics.”
Authorities said the assassination attempt, by a 71-year-old poet, was politically motivated.
Fico’s party opposes EU arms deliveries to Ukraine and rails against alleged “warmongers” in Brussels.
Those are also positions shared with many, but not all, far-right parties in Europe, which are predicted to make gains in the European Parliament.
Surveys suggest they could grab as much as a quarter of the 720 seats, weakening the centrist mainstream groupings which are expected to still come out on top.
In Italy, Meloni has put her name on the EU ballot papers as the lead candidate for the Brothers of Italy, though she does not intend to take up a seat in the European Parliament if chosen.
Instead she aims to bolster her party’s grip on Italy’s fractious political scene, possibly at the expense of her junior coalition partner, the far-right League party.
In the Netherlands, which voted Thursday, the anti-immigration party of extreme-right leader Geert Wilders – also in the governing coalition – won second place, according to exit polls.
