The centre-right alliance led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has won important victories in the local elections on the Whitsun weekend. The joint candidate of the three governing parties was able to prevail in Ancona, the capital of the Marche region on the Adriatic Sea, where the left had always provided the mayor for the past three decades. In the run-off vote on Sunday and Monday, future mayor Daniele Silvetti defeated his challenger from the Left Party with 52 to 48 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was only 51 percent. Prime Minister Meloni spoke of a "historic victory" in Ancona and added that there were no longer any safe strongholds in the whole of Italy that individual parties – especially left-wing ones – could dispose of.
Matthias Rüb
Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta, based in Rome.
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Overall, the joint candidates of Meloni's right-wing conservative Brothers of Italy party, the right-wing nationalist Lega of Transport Minister Matteo Salvini and the Christian democratic Forza Italia led by Silvio Berlusconi prevailed in nine out of twelve provincial capitals, including Brindisi in Puglia and Massa, Pisa and Siena in "red" Tuscany, which is still governed at the regional level by the Social Democrats.
Left-wing candidates asserted themselves in Brescia in Lombardy and in Vicenza in the northeastern region of Veneto, where the centre-right alliance forms the regional government. In Sicily, the candidates of the Meloni camp won in the provincial capitals of Catania and Ragusa in the first round of voting. In Syracuse and Trapani, the centre-right candidates are well in the running for the necessary run-off election on 11 June.
The good performance of the parties of the center-right camp can be seen above all as a personal success for Prime Minister Meloni, who still enjoys a high level of popular approval seven months after taking office. Meloni claimed the victory in the regional capital Ancona, as well as in most provincial capitals, as "recognition of the good governance of the center-right alliance" in Rome.
Elly Schlein, party leader of the opposition Social Democrats since the end of February, admitted defeat in the first direct competition for votes against Prime Minister Meloni. "This is a clear defeat," Schlein said after a board meeting of her party on Monday evening, adding: "Unfortunately, the right is still in a strong upswing." Schlein, who took part in the election campaign in almost all provincial capitals, reiterated her regret that the Social Democrats and the left-wing populist Five Star Movement had competed against each other in most cities instead of forming list alliances. "You can't win elections alone," Schlein said, calling for the building of an "alternative coalition" to the center-right alliance. However, the Five Star Party, led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, achieved very poor results in most cities in recent local elections.
The state should "not collect protection money"
Contradictory statements in the short campaign before the elections have obviously not harmed Meloni and her party alliance. In the flooded areas in Emilia-Romagna, Meloni promised rapid help for particularly affected communities, companies and families from Rome with the words "The state is here". At an election campaign appearance in Sicily, on the other hand, she did not portray the state as a friend of the citizen (in need), but tended to be his opponent.
At the closing event of the election campaign in Catania on Saturday, she said that tax evasion must be fought "where it really takes place: in large companies and in banks". On the other hand, the state should "not collect protection money from small traders". By equating the state's tax claims against small business owners with the extortion of protection money by the mafia, Meloni apparently successfully appealed to the feeling of many Italians that a notoriously inefficient administration was extracting more and more tax money from them for less and less performance.
After successes in the early parliamentary elections in September, in the regional elections in February and April, and now in the local elections, the centre-right alliance is now hoping for a good result in the European elections in May 2024.