A clear victory, with the symbolic “taking” of the capital by the democrat Roberto Gualtieri who detached his opponent Enrico Michetti by about twenty points, which would not have been possible without the adversary’s drift. But that does not mean that it is less clear: Rome and Turin returning to the Democratic Party and the center-left after the parenthesis of the penstastellate mayors, a result to which the big cities conquer in the first round, namely Milan, Bologna and Naples, are added.
The Pd of Letta undisputed winner …
For Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party it is certainly a day of celebration. If there is an undisputed winner of this administrative round it is he, the secretary of the Democratic Party, who also won the personal challenge of the supplementary rounds in the Siena-Arezzo college, thus returning to Parliament after six years. In conditions, therefore, to better manage the democratic parliamentary groups in the difficult game of Sergio Mattarella’s succession at the Quirinale which will open at the beginning of 2022.
… but the abstention and the bad choices of the opponents weigh
However, the debacle of the center-right in the big cities does not mean, at least not yet, a relegation to the national level in view of the policies: among the most experienced demos we remember the extraordinary success of the progressive front at the administrative offices of 1993, followed a few months by the victory of the created front. from Silvio Berlusconi to the political elections. Above all, the figure of the strong abstention should be taken into consideration (only about half of the electorate voted), which this time penalized above all the center-right camp. It is likely that at least a part of today’s abstentions will go to vote on the 2023 policies, and their orientation will greatly depend on the reorganization capacity of the Lega-FdI-Fi coalition.
The meager results of the M5s do not help the Latvian «Nuovo Ulivo»
For Letta, who from today sees himself certainly strengthened in the leadership within the Democratic Party (no one will invoke the congress anticipated until the next policies), the construction of the “wide field” that will have to challenge the center-right in two years remains an uphill battle. One cannot fail to notice that the victories of Rome and Turin not only took place without the contribution of the M5s but in a certain sense against the M5s: especially in Turin, where the new mayor Stefano Lo Russo was the main political opponent of the outgoing mayor Chiara Appendino and where there was no endorsement in her favor for the ballot by the pentastellated executives. In Rome, at the end the president of the M5s Giuseppe Conte made the expected declaration of vote in favor of his former minister Gualtieri, but the outgoing mayor Virginia Raggi wanted to remain neutral (and it will be interesting in the next few hours the analysis of electoral flows for understand how the voters of Raggi behaved, 19% of the Romans, regardless of the indications of the leaders).
For the Democratic Party it is necessary to open up to the forces of the center
Apart from Rome and Turin, the single-digit results collected by the M5s in large companies (under 3% in Milan, under 4% in Bologna and around 9% in Naples) were not decisive or undermining Giuseppe’s victory. Sala in the first round (in Milan the M5s ran alone) or to favor the victory, always in the first round, of Matteo Lepore and Gaetano Manfredi (in Bologna and Naples the convergence with the Democratic Party was immediately there). On the other hand, the good positioning of the Calenda List in the capital, also supported by the Renzians of Italia Viva and the radicals of Più Europa, is for Letta the signal that it is necessary to widen the center as much as possible to build a truly competitive “new olive tree” in view of the policies. But keeping everyone together will not be easy, also because the meager result of the M5s will increase the centrifugal forces in the movement and will accentuate the criticism of that part that does not take kindly to the “crushing” on the Pd and that now has a new point in the Rays of reference.