Florence, 22 June. (askanews) – Not just Florence (where the Dem candidate Sara Funaro and the center-right candidate Eike Schmidt are competing). Tuscany presents the Democratic Party with a good (national?) test if it is true that tomorrow and Monday, out of 18 run-offs, 14 will see incumbents from the centre-left and 4 from the centre-right. In short, there is a lot to lose and every municipality conquered by the right-wing wave will make the national government cheer up. For this reason, yesterday, on the eve of the electoral silence, the Dem secretary Elly Schlein returned to Tuscany, visiting Pontedera and Agliana, to conclude with the rally in Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence in support of Sara Funaro. “Funaro is a guarantee of good administration and also of Florence’s openness to Europe and the world, I am very happy with her openness and her courage and I want to see the first female mayor of Florence”, said Schlein, closing the campaign for the run-offs. In the Tuscan capital, the Dem candidate, nephew of the beloved mayor of the flood Piero Bargellini, plays the match for Palazzo Vecchio with Eike Schmidt supported by the center-right who has threatened lawsuits against those – like the Dem councilor Andrea Giorgio – who have questioned her “civic” candidacy ” warning that in the event of victory, the former director of the Uffizi will bring far-right exponents with him to the city council.
Hence Funaro’s response (“if he wants to sue us because we are anti-fascists, go ahead”) and Schmidt’s claim of a candidacy that is not only “civic” but also “Aristotelian”. From the first round Funaro emerges with 43.1% and Schmidt with 32.8%, but as both have repeated, the run-off is a completely different story, given that at stake are the votes of those who chose in the first round other candidates such as Renzian Stefania Saccardi (7.2%), Cecilia Del Re of democratic Florence (6.2%), Dmitrij Palagi of Sinistra joint project (5.4%) or the five-star Lorenzo Masi (3.3%) . Masi has already said that he will support Funaro in the run-off, Saccardi has made it known that he will vote for her even if Italia Viva has not taken an official position after Renzi’s hope of being “decisive” in the second round turned out to be unfounded. If it is true , as pollsters and political scientists explain that at a national level only one run-off in four sees the results of the first round overturned, abstentionism will weigh heavily on the Florence challenge. Hence the appeals to vote for both candidates – and the attention of the national leadership of the Democratic Party is also focused on this aspect – because if the turnout were to fall below 50% a new game would open up where the personal consensus that Schmidt is gained already in the first round could weigh more. The worries of the Democratic Party in Tuscany do not end in Florence and splendidly summarize some thorns of the national centre-left: alliance or not with the Five Star Movement, consequences of Renzi’s friendly fire, lack of convergence with the radical left . In the Empoli Soviet, for example, a run-off had never been seen but the dem candidate Alessio Mantellassi stopped at 49.5% and here too the Renzians ran alone. In Borgo San Lorenzo and Calenzano there are two former PD candidates competing for the position of mayor with the two official candidates of the PD. In Rosignano Maritime, Daniele Donati, candidate of the centre-left, reached 35% against 31% of Claudio Marabotti supported by the left and Cinquestelle. But the right also has its problems and in four centers where it is outgoing the Democratic Party dreams of revenge. In Agliana, for example, which was one of the final stops on Elly Schlein’s Tuscan tour. In Cortona, however, the right does not win in the first round but the Democratic Party is behind, while Piombino (where the outgoing mayor, from Fratelli d’Italia, stopped just a hair’s breadth away from going to the first round) and Montecatini (here the right is ahead by just three points) could be regained.
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