breaking latest news – In Sardinia there are four candidates for the position of president of the Region in the elections on Sunday 25 February. Here are the profiles of Alessandra Todde, Paolo Truzzu, Renato Soru and Lucia Chessa, according to the order in which their names will appear on the ballot paper, after the draw in the Court of Appeal in Cagliari.
Alessandra Todde
He leads a centre-left coalition made up of 10 lists: Pd, M5S-A Innantis, Progressisti, Alleanza Verdi Sinistra, Uniti per Alessandra Todde, Sinistra Futura, Psi-Sardi in Europa, Fortza Paris, Orizzonte Comune and Demos. Originally from Nuoro, where she was born on 6 February 1969, Todde graduated in Information Sciences and then in Computer Science. She is an engineer and she lived and worked for years abroad where she worked on energy and digital evolution. Between July 2018 and April 2019 you were CEO of Olidata, a company in the IT sector, a position you left to run in the European elections with the 5 Star Movement, without then being elected.
She was undersecretary in the Conte II government (from September 2019 to 13 February 2021) and then deputy minister of Economic Development from March 2021 to October 2022 in the Draghi government. In the last political elections on 25 September 2022 you were elected deputy for the 5 Star Movement. she was vice president of the M5S from October 2021 until November 2023, when she resigned to run for the presidency of the Sardinia Region.
Paolo Truzzo
Mayor of Cagliari and of the metropolitan city at the end of his mandate, a member of the Brothers of Italy, he was born in the Sardinian capital on 25 July 1972. He is supported by a centre-right coalition made up of nine lists: FdI, FI, Lega, Psd’Az, Sardinian reformers, Sardinia at the Center 20Venti, UDC, Sardinia-Pli Alliance, Rotondi DC. Graduated in Political Science at the University of Cagliari, he worked as a computer science teacher, commercial consultant, statistical collector, and as an administrative accounting instructor first at the Municipality of Cagliari and then in the Region.
In 2014 he was elected to the Regional Council in the centre-right coalition led by Ugo Cappellacci (FI) and in 2018 he became the first group leader of Fratelli d’Italia, a point of reference in Sardinia for the party leader Giorgia Meloni. In 2019 he was re-elected regional councilor in the centre-right and Sardinian coalition led by Christian Solinas, but shortly afterwards he ran for mayor of Cagliari. Having won the municipal elections in the first round against the centre-left candidate Francesca Ghirra (now a Progressives MP), he resigned from the Regional Council. he is one of the vice presidents of the national ANCI.
Renato Soru
Entrepreneur, founder of Tiscali, born in Sanluri on 6 August 1967, is running for the presidency of the Sardinia Region for the third time. The first, in 2004, won the elections with a centre-left and civic coalition. The second, again with the centre-left, attempted to be re-elected in 2009, after his early resignation in November 2008 and then confirmed the following day before Christmas Eve, but was defeated by Ugo Cappellacci (FI). This time Soru, who launched his ‘Gentle Revolution’ last autumn, is supported by the ‘Sardà Coalition, made up of the five lists of Action-+Europa-UPC, Progetto Sardegna, Liberu, Vota Sardigna and Rifondazione Comunista.
Graduated in economic and social disciplines at Bocconi University, he began his professional career in the financial sector in Milan and London and then, in the early 1990s, he returned to Sardinia, where he started projects in the large-scale retail and telecommunications. After his experience as president of the Region and regional councilor, Soru, in October 2014, won the primaries for the regional secretariat of the Democratic Party. He left office in May 2016.
In the meantime, in 2014, he was elected MEP with the Democratic Party in the Sardinia Sicily constituency, but in 2019, when his mandate expired, he did not stand again. His candidacy for the 2024 regional elections, having left the Democratic Party, marks his return to politics.
Lucia Chessa
Teacher, born in Bitti (Nuoro) on 9 July 1960, she graduated in Modern Literature at the University of Cagliari. You teach Italian and history at a higher technical institute in Siniscola (Nuoro). She is the former mayor of Austis, a municipality that she has led for 10 years since 2005. Since 2021 she has been the national secretary of the Rossomori, born from a group of Sardinians who left the Psd’Az after the party’s turn to the right. From 2010 to 2015 you were part of Cal, the Council of local autonomies of Sardinia.
From March 2014 to May 2015 she was president of the Gennargentu Mandrolisai mountain community. In 2014 you ran for regional councilor in the Nuoro constituency on the PD list, but despite over 1,250 preferences you were not elected. His candidacy for president of the Region is supported by only one list, Sardigna R-esiste.