Election: FdI cement poll lead – English

(ANSA) – ROME, SEP 6 – Giorgia Meloni’s conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) has cemented its lead in the latest opinion poll ahead of the September 25 general election.
    The rightwing party is now on 25.8% according to Radar SWG, more than four percentage points ahead of the second-ranked party, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), on 21.4%.
    Meloni, a 45-year-old Roman, is widely expected to become Italy’s first women premier after the vote.
    FdI’s main ally the rightwing League party is third on 12.1% for SWG, closely followed by the leftwing populist 5-Star Movement, which is running independently, on 11.9%.
    The centrist Azione-Italia Viva (IV) alliance is fifth on 7.2%, followed by the third cog in the centre right machine, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) party, in sixth on 6.7%.
    The PD’s main allies, EuropaVerde-Italian Left (SI), are on 4.2% and other leftwing parties total about 3-4%.
    The centre-right coalition is on 46.1%, up 0.2% on last week, and the centre-left one on 28.8%.
    The centre right is projected to win by a landslide and may get the two thirds majority in both houses it needs to pass a Constitutional reform bringing in a directly elected Italian president without having to put the issue to a referendum.
    (ANSA).