Elections in Italy: who will win?

• In the lead, according to the polls, is the populist 5-Star Movement -- a party founded by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo that eschews traditional left/right labels, rejects traditional Italian parties. It has dropped its calls for a referendum on Euro membership and also kept its distance from some of the hardline immigration rhetoric pulsing through the country.

Yet, polling at about 30 percent, its numbers show it far below the support necessary to form government and it has ruled out forming a coalition with other parties -- in line with its selling point that it wants to overturn traditional Italian politics, not join in with it.

• That coalition consists of Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party, uniting with  right-wing parties, namely the Brothers of Italy and the League -- headed up by Matteo Salvini. Put together, this coalition is polling at between 35 percent and 37 percent.

• The left-wing Democratic Party (PD), led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and polling in second place by itself, seems unlikely to get close to a majority due to a lack of coalition possibilities and have rejected entering into coalition with populist parties, but it isn’t the only way that current Democratic Party Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni could remain in power -- at least for the time being.