The board of the Italian state broadcaster, Rai, has for a second time nominated Marcello Foa, a Eurosceptic journalist who has often shared stories proved to be fake, to be its president. The nomination will now be put to the parliamentary committee that oversees Rai on Tuesday, where support for Foa’s candidacy is believed to be building.

Foa, who also holds anti-gay, anti-immigration, anti-vaccine and pro-Russia views, has been pushed for the role by the governing coalition of the far-right League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). The M5S leader, Luigi Di Maio, said Foa would help purge the “parasites” installed by mainstream parties who had led Rai for decades. His candidacy was blocked in August when he failed to receive the required two-thirds of votes from the oversight committee due to opposition from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the centre-left Democratic party and the smaller leftwing party Free and Equal.

His appointment now appears more likely after Berlusconi said this week that his party would drop its opposition, and because Rai’s board consists of a majority of politicians from the League and M5S. Berlusconi’s change of heart came after a meeting with Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister and leader of the League, as the pair sought to revive a centre-right coalition, which also includes the smaller far-right party Brothers of Italy, before upcoming regional elections in Trentino Alto-Adige, Abruzzo, Basilicata and Sardinia.(theguardian)…[+]