In Rome, the ballot between Enrico Michetti and Roberto Gualtieri , while the outgoing mayor Virginia Raggi and the leader of Action Carlo Calenda remain out. The game ends in the first round in Milan, where Beppe Sala swept the center-right candidate Luca Bernardo and the Cinquestelle Layla Pavone . And in Naples, where former minister Gaetano Manfredi (Pd-M5s) beat Catello Maresca (cdx). The Pd-M5s alliance also wins in Bologna with Matteo Lepore .
Urns open again in two weeks in Turin, where the Cinquestelle era ends. Valentina Sganga is not among the first two elected: Paolo Damilano (cdx) and Stefano Lo Russo (csx) will compete.
In principle, the center-left wins, with the center-right paying the price of candidates chosen at the last and not always suitable. But abstention also wins. Turnout has collapsed everywhere: the national figure stands at 54.69%, one in two voters did not go to the polls. In the round five years ago, 61.52% of those eligible had voted.
ROME - For Virginia Raggi only a thrill, when one of the widespread projections gave her a few points in front of Roberto Gualtieri and therefore close to the ballot with Enrico Michetti.
A thrill that lasted the time of a flap of wings, with the progress of the ballot it was increasingly evident that the first outgoing citizen - elected in 2016 with a very high percentage (67% in the second round) - did not 'would have said: "After five years of very violent attacks - he said at a press conference when the figure was now confirmed - I got just under what the battleships of the center-right and center-left totaled. We have achieved an important result that gives voice to many people who believed in me and in what we have done in these five years ”.
Now, he concluded, “I will not give any voting information. Citizens are not herds to be taken to pasture, votes are not packages to be moved ”.
Even before the official result, Gualtieri took to the stage of his electoral committee happy and content: "We are very satisfied because we are in the ballot. We will turn to all the Roman women and Romans to give Rome a government worthy of a great capital". The former minister is confident: "Rome can be reborn, play a leading role among the great European capitals and can lead a season of relaunching the country. Now let's go to the ballot and we will win the elections".
Michetti, never questioned since the polls were closed, is relaxed: "The first attention will be paid to the bureaucracy, the center-right cares about the administrative machine because the city is immobile in front of the potholes, the garbage, the problems of the schools and of green ".
His access to the ballot is one of the few results of the center-right today: "The game is still open and the most important is Rome", says the president of Fratelli d'Italia, Giorgia Meloni, who claims success: "FdI is the first party in the capital and played a fundamental role in determining the candidate for mayor and I think I can say that an FdI-powered center-right is very competitive ".
Calenda's numbers are not just too small. The former minister and leader of Action took 18%: "Our goal - he underlines - was not a testimony, but to govern Rome. If on the one hand we are happy with this result which opens a phase of work at national level, 'other sorry that the numbers do not see us in the ballot ".
MILAN - There is no match for the center-right man Luca Bernardo. The outgoing mayor Beppe Sala has recaptured Palazzo Marino with his eyes closed, exceeding 50% as expected and leaving the pediatrician twenty points away.
It is the first time that a center-left mayor wins in the first round in the Lombard capital: the former sole commissioner of Expo speaks of "something important", of "an almost historic event" in a city that still rewards the Democratic Party that remains the first party with over 33%, an increase compared to 29% in 2016. And Sala himself explains that he took 40-50 thousand more votes than the previous municipal ones.
A result so overwhelming that a reflection will be needed in the center-right: "I already see a rush to unload candidates that seems wrong to me", Sala continues. "Those candidates have been chosen by someone, even after long afterthoughts and it seems to me a little game that doesn't work and in any case not very Milanese ".
“I really hope, beyond the schedules, that the people who have decided not to vote are not forgotten. I will do it sitting in the City Council ", Bernardo's laconic comment.
NAPLES - After ten years of De Magistris administration, disconnected from the parties, Naples turns the page. The agreement between the center-left and the M5s works: the former minister Gaetano Manfredi wins in the first round with about 65%, triple the votes of the main opponent, Catello Maresca of the center-right, which in the counting in progress stands at 20-22% .
The engineer and teacher, former minister of the University in the Conte bis, is faced with the challenge of the maxi-hole worth two billion euros in the accounts of the Municipality, a chasm to be restored: "Naples has clearly said we want to turn the page - said Manfredi -. We we are not just pizza and mandolin but they are cities of great competence and professionalism ".
Far away the ballot goal for Antonio Bassolino, a former mayor who returned to the field almost thirty years after his first election, who tried to aggregate voters from the left but also from other areas.
TURIN - Five years after Chiara Appendino's victory, the Cinquestelle Movement suffers a heavy setback. The heir Valentina Sganga stops at 8%: "But it is crucial - he says -. Our votes will be decisive for who will be the next mayor. And this will ensure that the two candidates take into consideration the issues we have expressed in these months, the environment in the first place. There is still a part of the electorate that has chosen us on the basis of those issues ".
Paolo Damilano and Stefano Lo Russo will instead go to the ballot. "The center-right in the ballot is a historic result - Damilano rejoices -. The proposal from my civic list was accepted, we managed to bring the Turinese closer to politics, even if abstention is a huge problem. We will work on this in the next fifteen days ".
BOLOGNA - In the first round Matteo Lepore also wins in Bologna, another candidate born of the Pd-M5s coalition. "I believe that from this victory the progressives and democrats in our country and in Europe will draw strength - said the new mayor -. I want to invite all the progressive mayors who have won these elections to join, because from Bologna, Milan, Naples and I am convinced soon from Turin and Rome, from all the cities governed by the center-left in Italy, the revenge for the next national policies will start. We must start from our territories, from our cities, from our communities ".
(Unioneonline / D)
