Salvini’s European elections candidate causes backlash with vow to ‘UNLEASH A STORM’ on EU

One of the MEP candidates nominated by Mr Salvini, Italy’s anti-immigration interior minister, has launched her electoral campaign unveiling a poster where she promised to fight for a less powerful European Union. Ilenia Rento, who has little experience in politics, is running for a seat in the European Parliament. While her electoral promises are in line with Mr Salvini’s party, Lega, and demand more freedom from Brussels and a more decisive anti-immigration policy, the poster which she adopted to launch her campaign sparked outrage across the Italian political spectrum. 

Ms Rento’s poster depicted herself and Mr Salvini smiling with the slogan: “Let’s unleash a storm on Brussels”.

As the background for the poster, Ms Rento chose to use one of the chilling images representing the devastation brought by storm Vaia.

The tempest ravaged Veneto, a region in north-east Italy stronghold of Lega, in October 2018 and eradicated thousands of trees.

The choice of image sparked the outrage of Remo Sernagiotto, one of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia MEPs. 

The politician claimed the poster was simply “disgusting”.

He wrote on his website: “The line between provocation and bad taste has been crossed.

“I ask Salvini to take a distance from this poster.

“The destruction brought by Vaia represents an open wound and should not be trivialised to gain votes. 

“The people hit by the disaster deserve respect and seriousness.”

Ms Rento, who teaches Physics at high school and has been only recently nominated as head of Ater, the institute in charge of council estates in Belluno, a city of Veneto, shrugged off accusations of “bad taste”.

She said: “My message regarding the storm is clearly a metaphor about our ability to rise up after meeting difficulties such as the storm and my willingness to head to Europe to help my homeland.” 

The EU elections will take place in Italy on May 26, and all the main Italian parties have launched their electoral manifestos.

Lega, who entered a ruling coalition with eurosceptic Five Star Movement on June 1 2018, is currently leading the polls.

A survey carried out by the Demopolis Institute on 1,500 Italian voters in April, showed Mr Salvini’s party at 33 percent, followed by its Government’s ally at 22 percent and centre-left Democratic Party at 21 percent.    

source: express.co.uk