Matteo Lepore is the mayoral candidate of the center left in Bologna. Enrolled in the Democratic Party, 41 years old in October, councilor for ten years of the Merola junta, currently holder of culture, Lepore won the center-left primary against Isabella Conti, of Italia Viva. It will be he who will lead the coalition, with the support, at this point, already in the first round of the 5 Star Movement, given that, although not participating in the primary, he had announced that he was ready to support Lepore. At the end of an electoral campaign marked by poisons, personal attacks and controversies, Matteo Lepore prevailed also thanks to the broad front that supported him: the majority of his party, but also the left-wing reassembly of the Civic Coalition, and by important pieces of the left Bolognese: Arci, Legacoop, sardines, some social centers, with strong supporters such as Romano Prodi and Francesco Guccini. The party secretary Enrico Letta also spent his time on him.
Lepore prevailed in many seats in the city and also won in online consultations, an absolute novelty of this consultation, with 54.8% of the approximately 4,500 voters who registered on the platform in recent days. Isabella Conti, mayor elected with 80% in the rich and populous neighboring municipality of San Lazzaro di Savena, after an internal cursus in the Democratic Party followed Matteo Renzi in Italia Viva and was nominated by him in the primary. A move that split the Democratic Party, given that Conti has garnered the support of the part of the party that opposed Lepore, especially the one that refers to the reformist base, with MEP Elisabetta Gualmini in the lead. But Gianluca Galletti, a former UDC minister, close to Pierferdinando Casini, also led to the vote.
One of his statements would have been a sensational result and could not fail to have also had effects on the national balance of the Democratic Party. From tomorrow, to use a Prodi expression that has angered Conti in recent days, we will try to “coagulate the blood” that has flowed in this electoral campaign and regroup challengers and opposing supporters. To protect the winner from the risks of failing a victory that seems already written, given the uncertainties of the center-right in identifying a candidate and also given the results of the previous regional elections, when, in relation to the municipality of Bologna alone, Bonaccini prevailed (without M5s) for 65 to 31. Also the result of the turnout, which in the end stood well over 20 thousand votes (identified as a ‘psychological’ threshold to be overcome to consider these primaries successful and already reached at 17) center-left from Bologna, especially after the fears that arose last Sunday when the center-left primaries in Turin turned out to be a flop. Turnout fears were allayed early in the morning when voters lined up in 43 polling stations in the city