58.18% of eligible voters voted, the lowest in twenty years
THE CHALLENGE of being able to defeat the field by exceeding the threshold of 50 percent plus one was almost achieved by Domenico La Marca who at this point will have to wait for the run-off to win the right to wear the tricolor sash as mayor of Manfredonia. An appointment only postponed considering the progress of the counting of the ballots which indicated La Marca clearly in command with 46.64%, followed in order by Ugo Galli 25.76%, Antonio Tasso 17.72% and Vincenzo Di Staso 9 ,88%.
A PASSAGE which was widely predicted but which the polls have somehow reduced by attributing to the standard-bearer of the centre-left supported by Con, La Marca mayor, Manfredonia civica, Molo 21, PD, Progetto popular, Verdi Europa, the chance to become the 22nd mayor of the city. The competitors: Ugo Galli, exponent of a centre-right formation composed of Forza Italia, Ugo Galli mayor, Generazione viva Manfredonia, Fratelli d’Italia, Città Protagonista, Manfredonia al centro, Forza Manfredonia; Antonio Tasso supported by Movimento 5 Stelle, Agiamo, Sipontum, Antonio Tasso mayor, We are Manfredonia; and Vincenzo Di Staso with the grouping made up of Call me by name, Unione di Centro, Strada Fare, Lega, Puglia Popolare, could only try to counter the decision that had developed in the readership.
IN ANY CASE a certain suspense will reign over the conclusion of these administrative elections, the most uncertain, the most difficult, the most challenging in at least the last quarter of a century. The Siponto electorate had the opportunity to choose between four candidates, each with their own personality and a proposed vision of governing the city. A choice which was weighed by the widely expected abstention and confirmed by the numbers expressed at the ballot boxes, by the 28,018 citizens of the 48,225 registered on the electoral lists, who went to the 59 polling stations to exercise the right and duty to cast their vote. 58.18 percent. The lowest of the last five popular consultations: 2005/77.02; 2010/76.02; 2015/67.33; 2021/61.12. A drop of 18.84 percentage points. This contraction is affected, in addition to the contingent problems, by the strong exodus of Manfredonians now close to the threshold of 53 thousand inhabitants.
THAT of a certain reluctance to participate in the great popular call to decide the fate of the governments of reference is unfortunately a rather accentuated exercise. The reasons attributable to political trends, sociological difficulties and economic crises are various and diverse. Manfredonia is in that wake to which particular city situations must be added. A change of attitude towards a fundamental achievement of Democracy which seems to essentially affect young people. As demonstrated by Libera Maria Ciuffreda, one hundred years old last February, who showed up in the electoral section at the “De Sanctis” school to vote. “I’ve been voting since 1948 and I didn’t want to miss this event” she explained with a smile full of memory and hope. An example that promises better times.
THESE local elections, the 22nd of the Republican era, were accompanied by a tide of both hopes and fears. The city was coming from an endless series of government reverses which led to a fundamental cultural impoverishment and a lack of confidence in the possibility of reversing a course that seemed unstoppable. We have seen, it must be said, all kinds of things from the dissolution of the city council to the overthrow of the last one installed in Palazzo San Domenico after less than two years of government. In the middle, government commissioners.
THE COMMON denominator, overt and otherwise, is the declared “mafia infiltration” which apparently winds its way through the meanders of the Palace, pursued by the “DIA” which carried out the “Omnia nostra” trial and by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Foggia which is carrying out the “Hands off” judicial investigation with excellent arrests of administrators.
Michael Apollonius
