Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party had a commanding, albeit slightly diminished, lead in the last Italian opinion polls for the European Parliament elections before a curfew on their publication.
Italy will be voting for the EU assembly on May 26.
Surveys cannot be published since April 26, due to the campaigning and the ban kicks in at midnight.
Support for the League was at 31.6 per cent, down from 32.3 per cent earlier, according to an average of polls published on Friday by the YouTrend website and AGI news agency.
Salvini, Italy’s interior minister and deputy premier, is spearheading a new European alliance of far-right populist parties, ahead of the EU vote.
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The anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which governs with the League but is increasingly at odds with it, trails on 22.3 per cent, closely followed by the centre-left opposition Democratic Party on 21.4 per cent.
Two other opposition parties were reported above a national 4-per-cent threshold: the conservative Forza Italia of former premier Silvio Berlusconi, on 9.6 per cent; and the far-right Brothers of Italy on 5.2 per cent.
Europa, a europhile party led by former EU commissioner and foreign minister Emma Bonino, stood at 3.1 per cent in the YouTrend/AGI average, but one poll, also released on Friday, had it just over the 4 per cent threshold.
The Demos & Pi survey, published by the centre-left La Repubblica, also said that two-thirds of voters were undecided and that the approval rating for the League-M5S government had reached a historic low of 50 per cent. (NAN)
