The Latest: Anti-migrant leader demands right to rule Italy


              Right-wing, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League's Matteo Salvini gives a press conference on the preliminary election results, in Milan, Monday, March 5, 2018. Leader of euroskeptic League party Salvini says the center-right coalition has won 'the right and duty to govern' Italy. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Right-wing, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League's Matteo Salvini gives a press conference on the preliminary election results, in Milan, Monday, March 5, 2018. Leader of euroskeptic League party Salvini says the center-right coalition has won 'the right and duty to govern' Italy. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

ROME (AP) - The Latest on Italy's parliamentary election (all times local):

11:40 a.m.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's anti-migrant euroskeptic League party, says the center-right coalition has won "the right and the duty to govern" Italy.

Salvini said Monday the result indicates a center-right coalition will lead the next government and that his party had would lead the center-right, after eclipsing coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia in the vote.

The League jumped from 4 percent of the vote five years ago to nearly 18 percent in Sunday's vote, ahead of Forza Italia, which had nearly 14 percent.

Salvini also indicated he was not interested in what he called "strange coalitions," such as having the League join in a government with the populist 5-Star Movement.

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9:25 a.m.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is celebrating the strong showing of the anti-immigrant, euroskeptic League party in Italy's election.

Le Pen, the runnerup in last year's French presidential election and a loud critic of the European Union, tweeted Monday: "The spectacular advance and top showing of the League coalition led by our ally and friend Matteo Salvini is a new stage in the awakening of the people!" Le Pen didn't mention the strong showing of the League's rival, the 5-Star movement.

As the initial results came in, Le Pen also tweeted, "The European Union is having a bad evening...."

Le Pen's National Front party has lost steam and been in crisis since her crushing presidential defeat by pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Macron didn't immediately comment on the Italian result.

Alexis Corbiere of the far-left Defiant France party said Monday on BFM television, "There is a deep wish for change in Europe. If a progressive, civic-minded force doesn't take the lead, you will manufacture monsters."

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8:20 a.m.

Preliminary results released by Italy's interior ministry show the center-right coalition winning about 37 percent of the parliamentary vote and the 5-Star Movement getting about 31 percent, with the center-left coalition far behind with 23 percent.

With no faction winning a clear majority, the results early Monday confirm that negotiations to form a government that can win a confidence vote in Parliament will likely be long and fraught.

The partial results show the right-wing, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League party of Matteo Salvini surpassing the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi. The League captured around 18 percent, while Forza Italia had less than 14 percent.

The results confirm the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics - Forza Italia and the center-left.

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