In the end, there are more than ten points of separation between Sara Funaro, the centre-left mayoral candidate, and Eike Schmidt, the former director of the Uffizi launched by the centre-right to conquer Palazzo Vecchio: a much higher gap than all the polls and than, at this point, they expected on both sides.
At 11pm today, Monday, with 344 sections scrutinized out of 360, the result is now established and will change by a few decimals at most. Funaro reaches 43.1 percent, Schmidt stops at 32.9. A result which for the latter, despite the declarations of a “possible turnaround”, cannot be satisfactory.
On the contrary, the Democratic Party, which must be careful not to claim victory too soon, breathes a large and long sigh of relief: the threshold of 40 percent – going below would have been dramatic – is largely exceeded, despite the shattering of the centre-left, in whose camp also included Stefania Saccardi, supported by Matteo Renzi, and Cecilia Del Re, who after being torpedoed by Nardella in March 2023 began a solo journey that the dems did not believe possible.
In the end, Saccardi, who is also vice president of the Region alongside Giani, a detail that is not exactly negligible, stops at 7.3: a figure much lower than expected. Saccardi is right in saying that the polls have polarized the vote and that the fear of the right, even for those polls that showed ‘Sara’ and ‘Eike’ very close, would have pushed many of his voters to opt for the centre-left. In fact, before the vote Renzi and all of his supporters assured that they would reach double figures at least, but they aimed to go “much further”. 7.3 percent is therefore a disappointing result.
However, Del Re cannot be disappointed. Running alone, without a party behind her, she reached 6.2. Honestly, few believed it. But what can she do now? Relations with the Democratic Party are at their lowest.
“The runoff could have been avoided with the primaries, resulting in a strong and shared candidacy. Now we will see what will happen. We will discuss with the members in the next few days”, says the former urban planning councilor. “We were born five months ago and, without a doubt, we have superior potential, also because we were not driven by the European elections. With the Funaro-Schmidt polarization it is clear that the civic lists, which talked about issues, have lost out. But we are happy of this result, because in such a short time the voice of Firenze Democratica managed to reaffirm itself”, he adds.
Saccardi also says she is open to dialogue, in view of the runoff. But now it is the Democratic Party that, apparently, no longer wants to dialogue. “We took a lot of votes during the electoral campaign”, says more than one at the Funaro committee, in Viale Fratelli Rosselli, where the candidate follows the counting. The reference is to the ‘beatings’ of Renzi and company.
From “with us people didn’t die of cold”, to “with you children disappear”, a clear allusion to the case of little Kata, just to cite a few examples of Renzian caresses that many dems have not forgotten. So much so that both Sara Funaro and the city secretary of the Democratic Party, when asked whether an agreement with Saccardi or Del Re was possible in view of the run-off, replied: “We seek the trust and vote of the citizens”. Translated: no. At least for now.
The weakness of Renzi, who, moreover, does not reach 4 percent in the European elections and therefore will not go to Brussels, is certainly one of the most relevant political data of this administrative session. Even considering, moreover, that in Florence the voter turnout, despite a drop of almost 4 points, held up: it was 64.44%, much better than in other areas.
Schmidt, on the other hand, sees it differently. “The turnaround is absolutely possible. It has already happened other times in Tuscany, I’m thinking of Pistoia, Arezzo. The game is very open and this will make the next two weeks much more interesting”, he observes, commenting on the results with journalists, only at 8.30pm, after having participated, not surprisingly, in the demonstration in memory of Kata (today marks one year since his passing, which occurred on 10 June 2023).
“I am very happy with the result. We achieved our objective exactly. We prepared for the run-off”, says the former director, overlooking his pre-election hopes of coming within a few points of Funaro. In any case, the campaign for the run-off on 23 and 24 June has already started. “I will talk about programs, insecurity and degradation: I don’t promise plastic islands on the Arno”, the first barb of this new electoral campaign.
What else to say: Palagi, who led the bloc of the Florentine left, does not go beyond 5.5%. Despite his usual declarations, he cannot be satisfied: he risks remaining alone in the city council, while five years ago Bundu had led the same coalition up to 7.3%. Lorenzo Masi, of the 5 Stars, is doing very badly: he collects a paltry 3.4% (in 2019 De Blasi reached 6.6). The other candidates get the crumbs: Marrazza 0.5, the ‘no green pass’ De Giuli 0.5, Zini 0.4 and Asciuti, despite being an outgoing councillor, initially with the League then moving on to other shores, doesn’t work over 0.22.
In terms of lists, the Pd is at 30 percent, Funaro list at 6, Avs achieves a good result – also thanks to the addition of Ecolò’s local team – and reaches 5.4, Action is at 1.2. On the centre-right front, Fdi at 13.2, the civic list Schmidt Mayor at an excellent 9.7, the Lega at 5 and Forza Italia at 4.3. There were many other important matches in this round, both in the Florentine province and in Tuscany: at the moment, the pendulum is decidedly on the side of the centre-left. Of note, among others, are the victories of Ilaria Bugetti in Prato, the first mayor in the city, and of Luca Salvetti in Livorno.
When there are ten seats left to be counted, this is the situation
