Salvini defends that the League will be a parliamentary force "on the podium"

Candidates go to the polls in Italy

The leader of the Italian League, Matteo Salvini, has encouraged the population to go to the polls this Sunday and has defended that his party aspires to be one of the parliamentary forces "on the podium" for the formation of a new government.

"I am counting on the League to be the parliamentary force on the podium, first, second or third at most. Starting tomorrow, no more talk and we will go from commitments to deeds. We have clear ideas", he predicted after depositing his vote at a polling station in Milan, according to the AndKronos news agency.

Salvini has recognized that they will be "complicated months" for Italy in the face of the energy and economic crisis that all of Europe is suffering, although he has specified that "the more people vote, the stronger" the country will be, while with these elections "politics will be legitimized ".

The leader of the Democratic Party (PD), Enrico Letta, has also exercised his constitutional right to vote at a polling station in Rome around nine in the morning, where he has shaken hands with some of his supporters, the newspaper 'Corriere della Sera'.

Other politicians who have deposited their ballots in the polls have been the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, in Palermo, as well as the leader of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, who has gone to a polling station in Rome.

Likewise, the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, has voted in Florence in the company of his wife Agnese Landini, after which he has published a message on his official Twitter profile encouraging the population to go to the polls.

"We have voted. Do it too, whatever your political opinion. Democracy feeds on everyone's commitment. Long live the Republic, long live Italy. September 25," Renzi said, publishing a photograph in which he appears casting his vote.

Carlo Calenda of Acción has also voted at a polling station near the Trevi Fountain. "Vote, vote freely, without conditions and without fear. Italy is always stronger than those who want it weak," he said on his Twitter profile.

The leader of Italian Action has referred to the historical figure of Pericles, assuring that it is necessary to vote "consciously". "'A citizen who does not take care of the State is not harmless, but useless,'" the Italian politician said, quoting Pericles.

The former Italian prime minister and president of the Forza Italia party, Silvio Berlusconi, has also gone to cast his vote at his polling station in Milan, who has said that "it is the first time" that he has seen queues to vote.

"I have never seen queues in other years," he said while waiting to enter the building, accompanied by his partner Marta Fascina. "Everyone in a row? How good," he added, according to the Italian newspaper 'La Repubblica'.

Berlusconi has also been sure that his formation will exceed 10 percent of the vote and has pointed out that he aspires to become prime minister: "I will try to be the head of the next government." "Of all these leaders there is none who has ever worked. I really don't know who to vote for. I'm the only one left," he argued.

The last to go to vote, before the polls close at eleven o'clock at night, will be the far-right Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, who has decided to postpone the delivery of her ballot due to the multitude of photographers and reporters in front of your polling station.

In these general elections, in which the right-wing bloc, led by Meloni, is emerging as the favorite, nearly 50 million people will have to go to the polls, with more than four million Italians abroad.