Ballot boxes open in 595 Italian municipalities, where you can vote until 23 pm today, May 14, and from 7 am to 15 pm tomorrow. Immediately afterwards the counting of the ballots will begin. For these two days of local elections, the citizens of 595 municipalities are called to vote, for a total of 4.5 million voters distributed over 5,426 sectionsthat will have to elect their mayor. In the following weeks it will be the turn of Trentino and Valle d'Aosta on 21 May, and Sicily and Sardinia on 28 and 29 May.
Voting takes place in 13 capital municipalities, including a regional capital (Ancona) and 12 provincial capitals (Brescia, Sondrio, Treviso, Vicenza, Imperia, Massa, Pisa, Siena, Terni, Latina, Teramo, Brindisi). The eventual ballot is scheduled for Sunday 28 and Monday 29 May.
The color of the ballot papers is blue and there are two models of voting cards for the first round, divided according to the number of residents in the municipalities voting: the ballot paper is divided into four vertical parts in which they are printed, according to the order of draw, from left to right and from top to bottom, rectangles each containing the names of the candidates for mayor, the marking of the list linked to it and a line (in the case of municipalities with a population of less than 5000 inhabitants) or two lines (in the case of municipalities with a population between 5,000 and 15,000 inhabitants) dotted for preferential votes for candidates for the municipal council.
Seven of the capitals called to vote are currently governed by the center-right and five by the center-left, while Latina is governed by a prefectural commissioner after the fall, last year, of the center-left administration led by Damiano Colletta. Alliances to the test, therefore, with the unknown abstentionism, constantly growing in the last consultations. In fact, 2022% of those entitled to vote voted in the June 54 administrative elections, 5.4% less than in the previous round. Pd and M5S are allies in 4 capitals (Latina, Pisa, Brindisi and Teramo); Azione and Italia Viva in 6 (Brescia, Vicenza, Ancona, Pisa, Treviso, Brindisi); the government majority splits only in Massa where FdI expresses its candidate different from that of Lega, Forza Italia and civic lists.
Ancona is the only regional capital at the polls. In the Marche city - the outgoing mayor is Laura Mancinelli (Pd) - Ida Simonella (center-left) and Daniele Silvetti (center-right) challenge each other, while the 5 Star Movement supports Enrico Sparapani (RPT: Enrico Sparapani). In addition to Latina (where the outgoing Coletta is running again), the situation is also anomalous in Massa, where the center-right mayor Francesco Persiani was dismissed last March 1. He is a candidate for this round with Lega, Forza Italia and civic lists; Fratelli d'Italia, however, supports another name, Marco Guidi. The center-left tries to win back Massa with Enzo Romolo Ricci.
The two main opposition forces in Parliament are united in 3 cities: in Pisa there is a convergence between Pd, M5S and United Left in support of Paolo Martinelli, who challenges the outgoing mayor, center-right, Michele Conti; also in Teramo Pd and Five Stars together behind the outgoing mayor, Gianguido D'Alberto; Carlo Antonetti challenges him for the center-right.
In Brindisi neither the centre-right nor the centre-left were able to put forward unitary candidates. Pd and M5s will support Roberto Fusco, while the outgoing mayor Riccardo Rossi is supported by a single list: Brindisi Bene Comune -Alleanza Verdi Sinistra. For the center-right, Giuseppe Marchionna is the candidate of Forza Italia, Fratelli D'Italia and Lega, while Pasquale Luperti is supported by Movimento Regione Salento and Equality citizen.
Curiosity in Imperia, where the outgoing center-right Claudio Scajola, former Minister of the Interior, is challenged - for the center-left - by the deputy police commissioner Ivan Bracco, who since 2010 has investigated Scajola for six different investigations, all filed except one.
The round of the spring 2023 local elections will be completed on 21 May with the elections scheduled in Valle d'Aosta (1 municipality) and Trentino-Alto Adige (3 municipalities) and any run-offs on 4 June. And with the elections in Sicily, on 28 and 29 May (128 municipalities for 1,347,614 voters) and Sardinia (39 municipalities for 139,045 voters) with possible runoffs on 11 and 12 June. The vote will involve 171 municipalities in the Regions with Special Statute.