The centre right political formation led by Silvio Berlusconi has set up a committee in Malta to campaign amongst Italians living in Malta, who have a right to vote in the election due on the 13 and 14 April.
The committee to support the Popolo della Libertà (PDL) will be co-ordinated by Vincenzo Catalano who will promote initiatives on the island to inform Italian residents about the values and programme of the PDL.
In comments given to the News Italia Press Agency, Catalano invited all Italian citizens in Malta of moderate or liberal political persuasion to join the PDL committee to help support the party in the upcoming electoral challenge. Catalano said that the left in Italy “has ruined the image of Italy and it is therefore necessary to help the PDL turn a page in the country’s fortunes.”
The People of Freedom is the new party absorbing both Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the heirs of fascism, the Alleanza Nazionale led by Gianfranco Fini. They are allied with the xenophobic Lega Nord, and the southern Movement for Autonomy.
The Unità coalition that won government with Romano Prodi as prime minister has been split in the coming elections. The main grouping includes Walter Veltroni’s Democratic Party, which absorbed the centre-left Ulivo and Margherita parties, and which is now in alliance with Marco Panella’s Italian Radicals and Antonio di Pietro’s Italy of Values Alliance.
The other main grouping is La Sinistra Arcobaleno (Left-Rainbow) which includes both Communist Refoundation and the Party of the Italian Communists, as well as the Green Party, the Democratic Left. Maltese green candidate Arnold Cassola is on their European list for Italians living abroad.