Matteo Salvini’s League party triumphed in voting in an Italian region where the left had held power for some 50 years, dealing a humiliating blow to the national government’s coalition parties, AP reports. 

Results on Monday from balloting a day earlier for the governorship of Umbria, one of the country’s smallest regions, gave a coalition headed by Salvini and including the right-wing Brothers of Italy party and former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party, a combined 57.5 percent of the votes. Donatella Tesei, a League member and current senator who has served as mayor of a town in Umbria for 10 years, was elected governor.

A coalition anchored by the populist 5-Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party took a trouncing with a combined 37.5 percent.

The results of the election in Umbria have raised questions about how long the national government in Rome can survive.

Source: RT