TO Campobasso, capital of Molise, the candidate of the center-right coalition Aldo De Benedittis will challenge the candidate of the PD and the 5 Star Movement Marialuisa Forte. In the first round the Ministry of the Interior had initially awarded the victory to De Benedittis, with over 50 percent of the preferences, but made the mistake of not counting the so-called “disjoint votes”, i.e. the votes given by some voters to a candidate for mayor and to a list that supported a different candidate. After the recount of the votes, the preferences for De Benedittis dropped to 47.9 percent and therefore the run-off with Forte was confirmed, who in the first round took almost 16 percentage points less than the centre-right candidate. In the second round the PD candidate will be able to count however on the support of the civic candidate Giuseppe Ruta, who came third with 19 percent of the votes, who invited his voters to vote for Forte.
TO Power, capital of Basilicata, in the first round the centre-right candidate Francesco Fanelli took 40.6 percent, while Vincenzo Telesca, a civic candidate supported by some centre-left lists, stopped at 32.4 percent. For the Telesca runoff has received the support of the 5 Star Movement candidate Pierluigi Smaldone, who came third in the first round, and of the citizen Francesco Giuzio.
Among the other cities where the center-right won the most votes in the first round, a Cremona (Lombardy) Alessandro Portesani will challenge Andrea Virgilio of the centre-left; to Urbino (Marche) Maurizio Gambini will challenge Federico Scaramucci supported by the center-left and the 5 Star Movement; to Vercelli (Piedmont) Roberto Scheda will challenge Gabriele Bagnasco of the centre-left; to Lecce (Puglia) Adriana Poli Bortone will challenge Carlo Maria Salvemini of the center-left and the 5 Star Movement; to Caltanissetta (Sicily) Walter Tesauro will challenge Annalisa Maria Petitto of the centre-left.
The last two provincial capitals where the centre-right coalition fared better than its opponents in the first round are two special cases. TO Rovigo (Veneto) the candidate of Fratelli d’Italia, Lega and Forza Italia Valeria Cittadin is also supported by Azione. In the first round Cittadin took 20 percentage points more than his main challenger, Edoardo Gaffeo of the 5 Star Movement. TO Vibo Valentia (Calabria) Roberto Cosentino is supported by Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia, but not by the League. Two weeks ago Cosentino took 38.4 percent of the votes and in the runoff he will challenge Vincenzo Francesco Romeo, supported by the PD and the 5 Star Movement, who came second with 31.9 percent.
