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The north-eastern Veneto region saw its share of the votes rise to the League, once known as Lega Nord, from 10 percent in 2013 to 32 percent. Friuli-Venezia Giulia saw a rise from 6.7

percent to 26 percent which lead to the region swinging from center left to right. The League spread far beyond its usual borders and displaced the centre-left and took the areas between

Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna from the centre-left. In Emilia-Romagna the League’s vote rose from 2.6 percent to 19 percent. The Tuscan textile city of Prato when back in 2013, 40 percent of

the vote went to the center-left and the League did not even receive one percentage point, but yesterday the party received 17.8 percent of the vote. The south of Italy was catching up to

the north, however, the 2008 financial crisis pushed the region back. The south now has double the unemployment rate compared to that of the north. Off the back of yesterday’s vote former

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi resigned as leader of the Democratic Party (PD). He said: “It is obvious that I will leave the helm of the PD. The Italian people have asked us to be in

opposition and that is where we will go. We will never form a government with anti-system forces.”