Two notable data on the regional elections in Basilicata – Il Post

The 5 Star Movement’s votes in the region fell by two thirds compared to 2019; the lists of Renzi and Calenda, however, were decisive for the victory of the centre-right

In the regional elections in Basilicata on Sunday and Monday, won by the outgoing centre-right president Vito Bardi, the 5 Star Movement fared particularly badly. At the same time, the centrist lists attributable to Matteo Renzi and above all to Carlo Calenda fared relatively well, and were decisive in determining Bardi’s victory. In both cases, local trends underlie these results: but as often happens, regional elections are also used by political parties to draw conclusions on a larger scale (often exaggerating).

The M5S has always suffered greatly in local, administrative and regional elections, while demonstrating more solidity in national political elections. However, the result obtained in Basilicata is relevant not only if we compare it with that of the recent elections of September 2022, but also with that of the previous regional ones, of March 2019. At this time the M5S was in coalition with the Democratic Party and supported the candidacy of PD exponent Piero Marrese: he obtained 7.7 percent of the votes, i.e. 20 thousand votes, thus electing two regional councillors. A result that is less than a third of that obtained in the elections a year and a half ago, when the M5S took 25 percent with over 61 thousand votes. But in the 2019 regional elections the M5S, which supported the candidacy of Antonio Mattia, obtained 20.3 percent, i.e. 58,600 votes, bringing three of its representatives to the regional council.

Just limiting ourselves to the comparison between the two regional elections, in five years the M5S has substantially reduced the consensus it has in Basilicata by two thirds.

This is not an isolated case. In the recent elections in Abruzzo in March the M5S, which was in coalition with the PD and the other parties of the so-called “wide field” of the center-left in support of the civic candidacy of Luciano D’Amico, reached 7 percent of the vote, with 40,600 votes, electing two councillors. In the 2022 elections in Abruzzo he had obtained 18.4 percent, with 115 thousand votes. In the 2019 regional elections, when he presented himself alone supporting the candidacy of Sara Marcozzi, he received 19.7 percent and 118 thousand votes, with 7 regional councilors elected. Here too: in five years the votes have reduced by two thirds.

In Sardinia things went a little better, but not by much. In the 2019 regional elections, the M5S supported Francesco Desogus alone, obtaining 9.7 percent with 69,500 votes. In the 2022 elections, 21.8 percent with 149 thousand votes. At the regional elections on 25 February, in which the M5S supported together with the PD the winning candidacy of Alessandra Todde, the first regional president of the M5S, Conte’s party obtained 7.8 percent with 53 thousand votes. In this case, compared to the 2019 regional elections, the loss is around a quarter of the votes.

Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte during a conference held in the Chamber of Deputies, on 9 April 2024 (photo Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse)

Five years is a very long time in politics. In the spring of 2019 the Movement governed Italy with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and together with the League, and therefore had a very important national role. But the obvious thing, even taking this premise into account, is that the M5S in local elections generally suffers from coexistence with other parties: it has always obtained the best results by standing alone in favor of its own candidate. This isolation a priori excluded the possibility of victory, given that the other coalitions were broader and garnered the consensus of various lists, but at the same time it was appreciated by the historical electorate of the Movement, who has always despised or at least viewed the others with suspicion parties. To a certain extent this explains the reluctance with which Conte evaluates the hypothesis of a structural alliance with the PD, even more so in a situation in which the party led by Elly Schlein is stronger in terms of consensus, and therefore in an alliance it would obscure the Movement.

– Read also: The forced alliance between M5S and PD, despite everything

The other notable fact of the elections in Basilicata is the excellent performance of the centrist lists, both in support of Bardi. Action, Carlo Calenda’s party led in Basilicata by Marcello Pittella, obtained 7.5 percent with 19,600 votes. That of Orgoglio Lucano, a civic list created on the initiative of local leaders of Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva, took 7 percent, with 18,300 votes. If even just one of these two lists had supported the centre-left coalition, the result of the regional elections would have been much less clear and the two candidates, separated by less than 40 thousand votes, would have essentially been equal. If both center lists had supported Marrese, the latter would most likely have been able to beat Bardi.

In the last regional elections, the parties of Renzi and Calenda chose which side to take on a case-by-case basis, following an ambiguous line and moving to the right or to the left depending on the convenience of the case, or on harmony with the competing candidates. In Sardinia Azione and Italia Viva supported a centrist candidate alternative to the two sides, Renato Soru; in Abruzzo, however, they were together with the PD and the M5S.

In Basilicata there has long been uncertainty about their placement. Italia Viva was the first to distance itself from the Lucanian centre-left, induced to prefer Bardi also due to the stormy confusion that led PD and M5s to choose Marrese after having proposed and rejected two other candidates (Angelo Chiorazzo and Domenico Lacerenza) in the of a week. As for Action, however, the decision was more complicated: Pittella had excellent contacts with her former colleagues in the local PD, and had long implied that her preference would be to convince Calenda to stay in the centre-left. But the Movement’s veto against Pittella himself, in the end, led Action to choose the center-right and Bardi.

The good result of Orgoglio Lucano and Azione can be explained by the territorial roots of their candidates. The main person responsible for Orgoglio Lucano is the Renzian Mario Polese, regional secretary of the PD from 2017 to 2019, who then moved to Italia Viva. Polese was elected to the Regional Council with almost 3,500 personal preferences.

The reference of Action in Basilicata, however, is the son of the former socialist senator Domenico Pittella and the brother of Gianni Pittella, current mayor of Lauria (Potenza), former senator and deputy and long-time MEP. Theirs is one of the longest-lived and best-known political families in the region, of which Marcello Pittella was president from 2013 to 2019. He and his brother were for a long time the main representatives of the PD in Basilicata, until, in August of 2022, have joined Action. At the last regional elections Pittella was elected with over 7,100 preferences, the second most voted ever. In Lauria (where Marcello Pittella was also mayor before his brother, from 2001 to 2005) the Action list obtained 31.5 percent.

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