ROME • Italians headed to the polls yesterday - to the alarm of coronavirus experts - for a referendum and regional elections that could weaken the government and radically reshape the political landscape.

Just a week after a Herculean effort by schools to reopen in line with last-minute Covid-19 rules, classrooms across the country were shut to students and transformed into ballot stations for the two-day vote.

A triumph for the far right in this fiercely fought campaign would sound alarm bells in Brussels.

Exit polls are due when polling stations close at 3pm today, with referendum and regional results expected in the afternoon and evening.

It will be the first test for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's centre-left coalition government since it imposed an economically crippling nationwide lockdown to fight the coronavirus, which has killed almost 36,000 people in Italy.

The referendum, on slashing the number of MPs - from 630 to 400 in the Lower House, and 315 to 200 in the Upper House - is expected to pass, though there has been a late uptick in the number of prominent "no" declarations.

A "no" vote on the referendum would damage the co-governing Five Star Movement (M5S), which is already haemorrhaging voter support, though other parties - including its coalition partner, the Democratic Party (PD) - have backed the measure as well.

The cost-cutting reform is the brainchild of M5S, but while PD and parties on the right are theoretically in favour, their support has been lacklustre at best.

The regional battle is for governance of Campania, Liguria, Marche, Puglia, Tuscany, Valle d'Aosta and Veneto.

The right-wing coalition is set to easily retake Veneto and Liguria, and it could also snatch Marche and Puglia from the left.

But all eyes will be on Tuscany, a historically left-wing stronghold that might fall to Mr Matteo Salvini's far-right Northern League party.

"If the left performs particularly poorly... Brussels will grow concerned," Berenberg economist Florian Hense said.

The European Union will worry whether the national recovery plan Italy has to present - to obtain grants or loans to aid its ailing economy after the coronavirus lockdown - "will be ambitious enough, given the limited political capital of the coalition in Rome", he said.

"And whether, whatever plan Italy comes up with, it will actually implement it, given the uncertain future of the current coalition."

The poll is going ahead despite warnings against opening polling stations while Covid-19 case numbers are on the rise.

While Italy currently has fewer new cases than Britain, France or Spain, it is still recording more than 1,500 daily.

Professor Massimo Galli, infectious diseases chief at Milan's Sacco hospital, said: "The country is in a state of emergency; it is utterly contradictory to be massing people together at polling stations, particularly in the light of the trend in Europe."

He said previously that holding the elections now would be "madness".

Some precautions have been taken, however, with elderly and pregnant voters getting fast-track lanes to vote.

With older people potentially put off voting because of the health risks, the left has been organising special transport. One in three voters for the PD and the League are over 65 years old, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera daily.

Nearly 2,000 voters in isolation due to the coronavirus have also registered to have their votes collected, including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

But fear of catching the virus from voters obliged to pull down their masks to allow themselves to be identified has seen a flurry of last-minute desertions by polling station volunteers.

On Saturday, Milan was forced to urgently call for 100 fresh pairs of hands.

Mr Conte has clinched a behind-doors deal with PD leader Nicola Zingaretti to fight to save each other's political skins should the left perform disastrously, according to the Repubblica daily.

That might not be enough.

Political commentator Barbara Fiammeri for Italy's Sole 24 Ore daily said: "These elections are not going to topple the government.

"But there could well be a crisis, whether it be Conte's fall, the forming of a new coalition, or even a national unity government."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG