After Bari, there will also be a run-off for Lecce on 23 and 24 June.
The checks on the four contested sections did not have the desired effect Adriana Poli Bortone, centre-right mayoral candidate. The former minister remains under 50% of consensus for only 70 votes. The final result remained 49.87% against 46.81% obtained by the outgoing mayor Carlo Salvemini, supported by the centre-left.
In recent days some centre-right exponents had reported inconsistencies in various electoral sections, on all numbers 25, 26, 35 and 88. However, although further investigations into the case were carried out, the verdict remained unchanged. Poli Bortone accuses: «There were results that did not match in many sections. We didn’t ask for the review.” And he continues: «Now we are ready to call to the polls our voters who have largely chosen us and who have clearly denied the vote to the mayor who is losing by more than 4 thousand votes compared to 2019.
There was a severe judgment regarding him, now we and our voters must be compact and united to give the city an administration different from the current one.”
Poli Bortone then concludes: «To gather some votes, a few months ago a phantom department was inaugurated in the Lecce Local Health Authority, complete with the participation of the mayor and the president of the regional council (Loredana Capone), who cut the ribbon for the photos for use and consumption by the media. But the department isn’t there, it doesn’t exist.”
The reply came promptly Carlo Salvemini: «We are ready to spend all our energy on the ballot, I don’t think of politics as a challenge. Anyone who wants a tug of war should know that I am there but for me politics is not a challenge – and regarding the decrease in votes – it is no mystery that there have been subjects who have repositioned themselves in recent years”.
The political climate in Bari is no longer calm. Since Monday Romito (united centre-right) has changed his approach, a post from yesterday in which he writes: «While the left in Bari and Puglia brings investigations, recommendations and malfeasance, the centre-right government leads the G7. The most important event on the planet will take place in Puglia, by choice of the government which has chosen to enhance our land.” And then he concluded: «Is this showcase better or the style of Lerario and of all the other suspects from the Puglia Region and the Municipality of Bari?».
From the center-left front, Vito Leccese responded piqued to Romito’s declarations on the increase in his consensus: «It is worrying that he is so unfamiliar with mathematics, the center-left has reached 64% (including the lists in support of Michele Laforgia as exclusion of the M5s, ed.). He would do well to ask himself how, despite the incessant media campaign on the mafia and investigations, he only managed to get 883 more.”
