Italian rightwing coalition makes final push before election

Packed rally in Rome closes campaign for group forecast for landslide victory in polls on Sunday

A conservative coalition forecast to glide into power in the Italian general election on Sunday has wrapped up its campaign to a packed square in central Rome, filled with supporters old and new, young and not so young, a smattering of anti-abortion activists and a descendant of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

The trio - led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist origins, and including Matteo Salvini's far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia - has experienced loud and robust support over the past months and remained relatively close-knit, in stark contrast to a campaign by its main rival, the centre-left Democratic party, that has been so lacklustre it managed to breathe new life into the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) in southern Italy.