Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition of his Forza Italia and Lega Nord keeps on rising in the polls ahead of the March 4 vote. But it is expected to fall short of the 40 percent required to form a coalition – and Mr Berlusconi is currently banned from public office.
Neither of the two other major political groupings — former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s centre left and the anti-establishment 5Star Movement — are expected to get enough votes to form a government.
So the election is likely to be followed by months of prolonged negotiations or even another round of polling later this year.
Long-suffering Italians are used to political chaos but this time Brussels is also losing sleep over a number of issues.
The biggest headache is massive public debt. Italy’s economy is the third-largest in the eurozone but also one of the slowest growing and most indebted.
With public debt at roughly 130 percent of GDP, Italy is second only to Greece, at 180 percent.
The government own about £2.02 trillion – £30,700 for every man, woman and child in the country. By comparison, the total Greek government debt is £280bn, about £25,440 per citizen.
Another thorny issue is migration. Numbers dropped from 181,000 in 2016 to 120,000 in 2017 thanks to controversial deals struck with official and unofficial authorities in Libya.
EU officials have welcomed the drop but fear the strategy is unsustainable given the chaotic situation in the North African country.
Opinion polls ahead of the elections make grim reading for EU supporters with the largest single vote-winning party expected to be the Eurosceptic 5Star Movement, which has called for a referendum on Italy’s membership in the eurozone.
Mr Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition has teamed up with the right wing Lega Nord (Northern League), another party that has built its rise on anti-EU rhetoric.
A further cause for concern within the EU is the esteem in which all the contenders appear to hold Vladimir Putin so whatever the result of the election, Moscow is likely to come out smiling.
Mr Renzi threatened to block the rollover of EU economic sanctions on Russia when he was PM in 2015 and Mr Berlusconi’s relationship with Mr Putin is so strong his birthday gift to the Russian leader was a duvet featuring a giant picture of a handshake between the two.
Lega Nord has never hidden his admiration for the Kremlin.
And the 5Star manifesto calls for a reduced role for Italy in NATO and “for an immediate end of the sanctions” against Russia.