There have been a number of threats and incidents of violence toward right-wing political candidates and supporters ahead of Italy’s national elections this month, including gunshots fired at the office of a candidate in Calabria during a meeting.
The most recent incident of violence took place over the weekend in the northern coastal town of Marina di Carrara and saw a group of around 40 to 50 far-left anarchist extremists attack members of populist Matteo Salvini’s League as they were setting up an election campaign booth.
The League activists, four women and three men, were set upon by the extremists who smashed their stall and destroyed campaign materials. While Nicola Pieruccini, commissioner of the League in Massa Carrara, was taken to hospital for observation, no one was said to have been seriously injured as a result of the attack, La Nazione reports.
Salvini later posted footage of the violent attack on Twitter writing, “What happened last night in Marina di Carrara is VERY SERIOUS… I would like everyone, even from the left, to distance themselves and express solidarity with the supporters of the League attacked and beaten by 50 criminals.”
The attack comes just weeks after the office of Francesco Cannizzaro, a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and ally of Salvini and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI), was shot at in Reggio Calabria while the deputy was holding a meeting inside.
Roberto Occhiuto, president of the Calabria Region, offered his support for Cannizzaro saying, “Solidarity with the friend and member of Forza Italia Francesco Cannizzaro and his collaborators for the unworthy intimidation suffered this evening in Reggio Calabria.”
“The regional council strongly condemns this episode and asks the investigators to shed full light. That these criminals are identified and brought to justice as soon as possible,” he added and linked the shooting to mafia violence.
Giorgia Meloni, the firebrand conservative leader of the FdI who is on track to be Italy’s first female Prime Minister according to recent polling, has also been subjected to death threats and questioned why the leader of the left-wing Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, has refused to condemn them.
“The secretary of the Democratic Party did not consider making two lines of condemnation and solidarity in the face of the death threats received. In reverse, we would not have hesitated because for us politics is confrontation,” Meloni said.