What You Need to Know About Italy’s March 4 Election

Italy’s all-too-familiar postwar brew of government dysfunction, economic stagnation and toxic debt has an added pinch of populism as an important national vote nears. Parliamentary elections in the euro region’s third-biggest economy on March 4 will test stress points including the country’s ambivalent relationship with the single currency, its towering debt and a troubled banking system still trying to dispose of decade-old poisonous holdings. Even as the specter of populist revolt recedes elsewhere in Europe, Italy’s anti-establishment, euroskeptic Five Star Movement is seeking a breakthrough.

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