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Head of the Lega Nord (Northern League) party and former Italy's Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini reacts during his party's rally in Conselve, near Padua, on August 30, 2019.AFP / Marco BERTORELLO Image Credit: AFP

At noon on Thursday Bertalan Havasi, the Prime Minister's press chief, informed the Hungarian news agency MTI that Prime Minister and President of Fidesz Viktor Orban has written a letter to Matteo Salvini - the leader of the Italian party Lega, and until today a member of Italy's government.

Summary: Polls showing support for his Lega party doubled since the election that brought him to national power 14 months before.

ROME, Aug 20 (KUNA) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced Tuesday that he would resign from his post after failure in forming a coalition government between Five Star Movement and the Lega Nord (Northern League) parties.

The country's deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, quickly established himself as the strong man in the (uneasy) coalition government between the right wing populists of the Lega and their leftwing populist partners of the Five Star Movement (M5S), which is led by the other deputy premier Luigi Di Maio.

This fundraiser with a difference was part of UNICEF's 'Workout for Water' initiative, in conjunction with Les Mills Fitness Clubs, to help complete the Lega and Yelam Gej multi-village solar-powered water systems in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia.

Even if you discount the fact that EU elections typically attract a significantly lower turnout than national polls, it was still striking that the government's junior coalition partner, the eurosceptic Lega party, saw its support double from the 17 per cent of voters it attracted in Italy's General Election last year.

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally won in France and Italy's right-wing Lega Party, led by Matteo Salvini won with more than a third of the vote.

While far-right parties are making gains all over Europe, it is far too facile to apply the label "fascist." So far, most of these new parties, including Salvini's Lega, appear more interested in gaining power and positions within their political systems (and within the European Union's bureaucracy) rather than tearing them down.

Lega Nord far right party leader Matteo Salvini address supporters during campaign rally earlier this year

Cross-cultural findings pertaining to Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy suggest that although irrationality--the shoulds and demandingness initially formulated by Albert Ellis (1958) in the United States in the mid 1950's--generally applies to countries in Latin America, Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia, there seem to be significant differences in the degree of musts and demandingness in some cultures (Ellis & Lega, 1993; Lega & Ellis, 2001).