Italy's center-right parties performed impressively in last month's local elections, prompting former Prime Minister and Democratic Party head Matteo Renzi to acknowledge that the polls “could have gone better” for his center-left formation. But turnout was just 46 percent, according to Reuters, and there were questions as to whether the results are predictive of how the various parties will fare in next year's general elections. In an email interview, Mark Gilbert, a professor of international history at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS Europe, describes the factors that fueled the center-right's success and the issues that are most important to Italian voters.
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