The Taranto elections are resolved in the first round and for Rinaldo Melucci, of the Democratic Party, candidate for mayor of the center-left and outgoing mayor, a 61 percent victory against 29 percent of the center-right challenger, Walter Musillo.
Melucci’s assertion took shape as early as the early afternoon of June 13, two hours after the start of the ballot, and as the data from the 191 sections pour in it is being confirmed.
The candidates in the running
There were four mayoral candidates running for Taranto. In addition to Melucci, whose coalition “Taranto Ecosystem” rests on 11 lists, and Musillo, who led the “Great Alliance for Taranto” with 10 lists, Luigi Abbate was also in the field, to whom partial data assigns 5.08 , and Massimo Battista with 4.29.
June 2022 was the natural electoral deadline having voted in June 2017 but Taranto arrived with a commissioner at the Palazzo di Città, the prefect Vincenzo Cardellicchio. In mid-November, in fact, 17 out of 32 directors, both majority and opposition, resigned at the same time causing the early dissolution of the Board and the fall of the administration.
From there began a long electoral campaign that ended with yesterday’s vote and now with the almost certain confirmation of Melucci. Re-election on which the Democratic Party had bet a lot, showing confidence and aiming for Taranto on that wide field, that is, the alliance between the Democratic Party, M5S and other progressive and center-left forces, repeatedly recalled by Enrico Letta, National Secretary of the Dem.
Emiliano: “One of the most important results in Italy”
“Certainly one of the most important results in Italy – comments the governor of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano – about Taranto. Here the coalition presented itself in the same formation that governs the Puglia Region. In the same formation that we hope will be able to govern Italy in the next political elections. It is certainly the confirmation of the good work that Rinaldo Melucci had done, interrupted in a subtle way “. “We have lost some time – says Emiliano -, now it is a question of also considering the importance that this result, if confirmed, risks having for the rest of the country because this is a government formula that works in the South, it works in Taranto, which is a difficult city, and can work in Italy “.