Twelve million Italians were called to the polls between the day on Sunday and yesterday in the municipal elections that will renovate the town halls of 1,192 cities, including the great regional capitals: Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin, Bologna and Trieste.
In the first elections since Mario Draghi assumed as a prime minister – after the government crisis at the beginning of the year that ended with the exit of Guiseppe Conte – the electorate has moved away from populism in some of the great cities.
The left center managed to conserve the municipalities of Milan (North) or Naples (South), defeating the ultraraderecha without palliatives, while Rome will require a second round, according to the projections of the scrutinized data until the closing of this edition.
“We have shown that you can beat the right,” held former Prime Minister Enrico Letta, which is since last March New Leader of the Democratic Party (PD), the largest center training of the country and great winner of the elections with
A experimental progressive coalition, next to the five star movement (M5E) in some cities.
The results of the elections of this Monday, postponed by 2020 by the pandemic, faced the candidates of the right coalition, formed by Forza Italia and the Ultraderechist League of Matteo Saloni and Brothers from Italy by Giorgia Meloni, with the center left
.
And they throw a national key reading for the generals of 2023: low participation, from 54.64% compared to 61.52% registered in 2016, when the polls opened only during a day, instead of one and a half.
The result will influence another choice: the Presidency of the Republic.
Next February, the substitution of Sergio Mattarlla will be played by Mario Draghi, whom many would like to see as head of state during the next seven years.
In Milan, the current Mayor, Giuseppe Sala, would revalidate the position in which he has been arriving from 56% of the votes in front of his rival of the right Luca Bernardo (33%).
Sala celebrated the “historical” result and warned that “they will be the most difficult five years in Milan’s most recent history,” the city he voted a scarce 47% of the electorate.
“We need to leave the pandemic, manage recovery funds and prepare for the Olympic Games. My promise: I will be the mayor of all and I will find the formulas so that everyone participates in the city’s policy,” said 63-year-old.
.
The race to the Italian capital becomes, as expected, extremely close and with turns.
The Romans will have to go on second round on October 17 and 18, between the two aspirants with more ballots: the aspirant of the Center Coalition, Enrico Michetti (31%), and that of the PD and former Economy Minister, Roberto Gualtieri
(26%).
A career that leaves the current Mayor, Virginia Raggi, from the M5E, which in 2016 was the first woman to become mayor of the Italian capital with 70% of the votes and between promises of revolution.
The result of it was to wait after the criticism of the management of it in the eternal city, where dirt and garbage accumulated on the streets has gathered the wild boars.
The M5S has also lost in Turin (Northwest), one of the first conquests of the movement when it was an anticast party, where there will also be a second round between the progress candidate Stefano, at the head with 43%, and that of the
Right, Paolo Damilano (39%).
The Progressive Alliance has also triumphed in the south, in Naples, where he won the former Minister of Universities Gaetano Mandredi (64%), after ten years of government of a radical Left Magistrate, Luigi de Magistris, who also came with many promises
, but he has created many evils and problems, generating in the Neapolitans a palpable desire for change.
Likewise, the Alliance between the PD and the M5E resulted in the victory of Matteo Lepore (62%) in Bologna (North).
The first words of self-critic on the right pronounced the leader of the league, Matteo Salvini, aware of the little brilliant results of his coalition, which has lost his bastion in Milan: “We chose the best candidates, but we did it too late and
Voters did not have time to meet them and value their programs, “Salvini said, which also attributed the Batacazo to low participation.
The campaign has been marked by the division between the League Secretary, and Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy.
“We can not waste time on internal issues,” Salvini urged, dotted by the scandal starring him, who resigned by the involvement of him in a cloudy episode of drug and prostitution.
At least, the Italian right has retained in Calabria with the victory of Roberto Occhiuto (54%);
The region had to advance its elections after the death of the previous President, Jole Santelli, at 51.
The successful union of the left parties has been a bet of its leaders: Enrico Letta, PD and former Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, who has taken the reins of the M5E.
Precisely today, Letta strengthened the position of him by comfortably winning in Siena with 50% of the votes, six years after the resignation of him in 2014 as a prime minister after an internal pulse within him led by Matteo Renzi.
Letta had already noticed previously that he would renounce the direction of the PD if he was defeated in the vote on Sunday and Monday.
“We won campaigning on the ground, not on Twitter or at high-level conferences,” said Letta to the journalists, thanking all the smaller parties that had endorsed the campaign of him.
