Italy’s populist ex-interior minister Matteo Salvini is now the most trusted political leader in the country, according to polling.

The League (Lega) leader scored a 40 per cent trust rating in the poll, beating current Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who received 39 per cent.

A further 48 per cent of the respondents said they had little to no confidence in the new Five Star-Democratic Party government which Conte heads, Il Giornale reports.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement, was trusted by just 28 per cent of those polled, behind national-conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni on 29 per cent.

Addressing Crowd of 80,000 Supporters, Populist Salvini Calls for Immigration Referendum https://t.co/DeUm8fh8ui — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 17, 2019

Meloni has slammed the new leftist coalition of the Five Stars and the Democratic Party (PD) and has demanded fresh elections.

At a recent demonstration in Rome, Meloni said: “Parliamentary Republic does not mean that the parliament can be organised against the people. They know they are doing something the Italians don’t want and because they know they can’t win a free competition in the elections, they steal it. They are thieves of democracy, thieves of sovereignty, thieves.”

The leader of the left-establishment Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti, saw even worse poll numbers, at just 23 per cent. Zingaretti has pushed for the reopening of Italy’s borders to NGOs operating migrant transport ships in the Mediterranean.

Previous polls have shown little support for the new Italian government, with just one in three members of the public expressing satisfaction with the leftist coalition.

Fewer than One in Three Italians Happy with New Coalition https://t.co/mhuEbzWCS0 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 5, 2019

According to a new Agorà poll, 48 per cent of the voters said they had little to no confidence in the coalition, while just 29 per cent said they did.

A majority said they thought Italy would now have less influence in Europe and said that the government would fail in its proposal to redistribute migrants to other European Union member-states.

Earlier this week, 130 migrants landed on the island of Lampedusa, amd tensions are growing at the island’s migrant reception centre.

Hungarian Minister: With Salvini Europe Was Safe https://t.co/eIwJ0tBU2X — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 20, 2019