The agreements reached after the vote on 8 and 9 June and the turnout data will shift the balance
Of Alessandra Lemme,
June 21, 2024
Final rush towards the run-offs on 23 and 24 June, with leaders engaged from north to south and a hundred municipalities ready to reopen polling stations. Five regional capitals (Florence, Bari, Perugia, Potenza and Campobasso) and nine provincial capitals (Lecce, Avellino, Cremona, Urbino, Caltanissetta, Vibo Valentia, Rovigo, Verbania, Vercelli) are preparing for the second round of the administrative elections.
What will shift the balance will be not only the alliances and agreements found after the vote on 8 and 9 June, but the turnout in the first round was 62.6% of those eligible. A figure lower than the 67.6% of the previous administrative consultations in 2019, but still higher than the percentage of voters in the European elections, which stopped at 49.66. Voting takes place in just over 100 municipalities from 7am to 11pm on Sunday 23rd June and from 7am to 3pm on Monday 24th and eyes are focused in particular on the five regional capitals.
TO Bari, Vito Leccese, who obtained 48.02% in the first round, will have the support of the M5S candidate Michele Laforgia (21.75%), to strengthen the center-left alignment against Fabio Romito, the center-right candidate who two weeks ago he obtained 29.12%. TO Florence the challenge is between the broad center-left camp of Sara Funaro (43.17%), and the candidate supported by the center-right Schmidt Eike Dieter (32.86%). To support the Pd candidate, who after the first round received the Lorenzo Masi’s M5S support (3.35%), secretary Elly Schlein will also be there on Friday, who will close the campaign for the runoffs in Florence. TO Perugia the two challengers Vittoria Ferdinandi (49.01%) from the centre-left and Margherita Scoccia (48.29%) from the centre-right, one of whom is preparing to become the first mayor of the Umbrian capital, are divided by less than one percentage point and less than 600 votes .
TO Campobasso the centre-right candidate Aldo De Benedittis reaches the second round strong with 47.9% collected on 8 and 9 June. The center-left challenger, Marialuisa Forte, obtained 32.16% and the preferences of Pino Ruta’s ‘civic construction site’ (19.94%) could weigh on the ballot. No formal alliance between progressives and the civic construction site, but an agreement in the event of the coalition’s victory. TO Power the challenge is between Francesco Fanelli, of the centre-right, who starts from 40.6%, and Vincenzo Telesca of the centre-left, who stopped at 32.4% in the first round, with Pierluigi Smaldone of the M5S, out of the ballot after the 17th, 63% from two weeks ago.
