Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party has swept to victory in regional elections in Abruzzo, where the previous centre-left Democratic Party (PD) governor had to step down earlier this year following an alleged public health scam.
Centre-right candidate Gianni Chiodi won with 48.8% of the vote while Carlo Costantini of the small Italy of Values (IDV) party, being fielded by a centre-left coalition including the main opposition Democratic Party (PD), garnered 42.7%.
The PDL hailed Monday evening's result as a crushing defeat for the PD, which received only 19.6% of votes - a drop from 35.3% in the last regional elections in 2005.
IDV was meanwhile celebrating a leap in popularity with 15%, up from just 2.4% in 2005.
Turn-out was unusually low at only 53% - a 16% drop from the last regional elections.
Chiodi was among observers who said the ''ethical issue'' had played a part in his victory, while the scandal-hit local PD continued to unravel right up until the ballots closed.
Regional elections had to be called after Abruzzo's former PD governor Ottaviano del Turco stepped down in July after being arrested in connection with the alleged public health scam in which he is suspected of taking a bribe of almost six million euros.
He denies any wrongdoing.
On Monday evening the PD suffered another blow as the party's regional secretary, Pescara Mayor Luciano D'Alfonso, was also placed under house arrest in a separate alleged kickback scandal.
Chiodi said the poor turn-out at the ballots demonstrated the electorate's ''disaffection with politics'' and that changing opinion would be his ''first challenge'' as governor.
PDL Senate whip Maurizio Gasparri said the PD's loss was a sign of ''the political and moral collapse of the Italian left''.
''The defeat of the PD in Abruzzi has been total, in the numbers, in moral judgement, even with the arrest of (PD leader Walter) Veltroni's regional secretary as the ballots closed,'' he said.
Veltroni said the result made him feel ''the responsibility of not having made clear what the PD can be again''.
''Yesterday's vote in Abruzzo gave us a particularly negative result that we must look in the face in its real dimensions,'' he said.
''It was a vote that indicates reasons for social disquiet and criticism towards a certain way of doing politics,'' he said.
IDV leader and former judicial graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro hailed the increase in votes for his party but pointed out that because of the low voter turn-out Chiodi will govern the region ''with a meagre 25% consensus of those who had the right to vote''.
''In Abruzzo the abstainers' party won, with 47% of the non-votes,'' he added.
