Conte says M5s backing Orlando as Liguria governor candidate

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 1 - Populist left-wing Five-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte on Sunday said his party was backing Andrea Orlando, a leading member of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), as candidate to govern the Liguria region.
    "We need to give back to Liguria's citizens the possibility of imagining a better future, based on transparency and public ethics", said Conte.
    Liguria's election, after Giovanni Toti stepped down as governor following an arrest on corruption charges, are scheduled to be held on October 27-28. Toti, who was released from house arrest in July after resigning, is set to stand trial with the first hearing scheduled on November 5.
    Earlier this year, the so-called 'broad field' alliance between the Democratic Party and the populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) was implemented, among others, in key Sardinian regional elections, won by M5S's Alessandra Todde and in Abruzzo, where Luciano d'Amico, a university professor backed by a 'broad field' that also included IV and Azione lost to the centre-right candidate Marco Marsilio who was reconfirmed as governor. (ANSA).