Local vote comes as Italy struggles to form government

ROME – Voting in one of Italy's tiniest regions is being watched for any shift in voter sentiment as politicians in Rome struggle to form a national government.

Residents of Molise, a southern region that is one of Italy's least populous, were voting Sunday for governor and regional representatives.

The March 4 national parliamentary election yielded a political stalemate, with the populist 5-Star Movement and a center-right bloc emerging as big winners, but each without enough votes to govern alone.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has tried, so far without success, to see which parties might be willing to partner in a coalition solid enough to command a majority in Parliament.

Molise's outgoing governor is a Democrat, the lead party in Italy's now-caretaker government.

The center-left Democrats were trounced in the March vote.