Win for Salvini as Italian far right takes left-wing stronghold of Umbria

Umbria is part of “red belt” and has been controlled by the left for 50 years

Winning candidate Donatella Tesei with Matteo Salvini (AP)

Italy’s far right has wrested political control of a region that has been affiliated to the country’s left for half a century.

An alliance between Matteo Salvini’s League, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and the post-fascist Brothers of Italy won the governorship of Umbria with 57 per cent of the vote.

Their joint candidate, Donatella Tesei, placed well ahead of her nearest rival, who was backed by the country’s centre-left and the populist Five Star Movement.

The local result is in line with polls showing League and its allies doing well across the country, despite being booted out of government in August.

“The results we have seen in Umbria, we are seeing all over the country. This is not a government that represents the Italian people,” former interior minister Mr Salvini told Italy’s Radio 24.

Mr Salvini restated his demand for fresh national elections, saying he did not think the current situation could “go on much longer”.

The far-right leader collapsed his coalition government with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement in August in the hope of triggering fresh parliamentary elections and capitalising on his party’s poll success.

But his gambit backfired after his former coalition partners joined forces with the centre-left and formed a new government without needing to go to the polls.

Umbria is part of the so-called “Red Belt” across central Italy, where communists and their successor parties long enjoyed popular support after the Second World War.

Emilia-Romagna, the largest region in the belt, is going to the polls on 26 January next year – and the League hopes to replicate its success.