Meet the hard-right party likely to win Italy’s election

father died when he was a teenager, and he went to work in a factory to help support his family. But Mr Fioravanti never gave up on his dream of university, eventually winning a degree in political science. By the age of 26 he was a city councillor in his hometown of Ascoli Piceno, a picturesque place where Renaissance palaces nestle by a river winding out of the Apennine mountains. Three years ago he was elected mayor. Every month he makes himself available to voters in a local café. “Locked away in the town hall, you risk losing touch with the problems of the city,” he says.Between 80 and 100 people turn up to air grievances and suggestions. With their input, Mr Fioravanti has drawn up projects that have earned Ascoli Piceno a handsome allocation from the ’s covid recovery fund—the fourth-largest share per head, he says, among Italy’s 7,904 municipalities. Under his stewardship, he continues, local government property has been turned over to public housing; municipal welfare benefits have been increased; an “ethical hotel”, run by the disabled, has been opened; and the city has acquired a new park and a cycle path down to the sea. In a poll in July by , a financial daily, Mr Fioravanti was rated the second-most popular mayor of a provincial capital.