Eight Apulian municipalities are back to voting to elect new mayors in the run-off scheduled for 23 and 24 June. Polling stations open on Sunday from 7am to 11pm and on Monday from 7am to 3pm. These are the 8 cities in which, during the first electoral round on 8 and 9 June, none of the candidates for the office of mayor managed to exceed the 50% threshold of the overall votes. We return to the polls in Bari to elect Antonio Decaro’s successor. The challenge will be between the PD candidate Vito Leccese, who came close to winning in the first round with 48% of the vote, and Fabio Romito for the centre-right, who two weeks ago reached 29%. The M5S candidate, Michele Laforgia, excluded from the ballot, announced full support for Leccese. In the province of Bari two other municipalities are going to the vote: in Putignano there is a challenge in the centre-left area between the outgoing mayor Luciana Laera and the former president of the municipal council Michele Vinella; in Santeramo in Colle Vincenzo Casone, mayor of the city until the commissionership in January, tries again, leading a coalition led by Popolari and PD, leading in the first round by seven points over Nunzio Zeverino Digregorio, candidate of Forza Italia. The spotlight is also on Lecce, where Adriana Poli Bortone for the centre-right missed out on victory in the first round by a few dozen votes, stopping at 49.95% of the vote; the challenge will be with the outgoing centre-left mayor Carlo Salvemini. The only other Lecce municipality on the ballot is Copertino where voters will have to choose between Vincenzo De Giorgi of the centre-right and Antonio Leo for the centre-left. In the Foggia area, the election of new mayors is awaited in three municipalities: in Manfredonia Domenico La Marca, leading a centre-left coalition, concluded the first round more than twenty points above the centre-right candidate, Ugo Galli. Conservatives excluded from the ballot in San Giovanni Rotondo where there will be a challenge between Filippo Barbano, candidate of the M5S and the outgoing mayor Michele Crisetti, for a PD-led coalition, separated in the first round by just a hundred votes. The voters of San Severo will also be at the polls: the choice will be between Angelo Masucci of the centre-left and Lydia Colangelo, candidate of Fratelli d’Italia.
