The arrival at the electoral committee, then, towards Piazza Sant’Oronzo where a short electoral rally was improvised.
Adriana Poli Bortonebeats Carlo Salvemini on the ballot and was elected Mayor of Lecce for the third time.
A battle until the last vote, which pitted the outgoing mayor and the “Iron Lady” of Salento politics which in the end, with just over 600 votes saw “Adriana” prevail over Salvemini.
At the end of the contest, the first to compliment the new number one of “Palazzo Carafa” was his opponent: «The people of Lecce have chosen Adriana Poli Bortone, I wish her well in her work and congratulations for the result achieved . I hope you do well, because doing well for the mayor means doing well for the whole city.
I am aware that I have given everything in recent years for my city and I am honored to have served it. I feel proud to have been the representative of all the citizens of Lecce for six and a half years, without distinction. And today that the vote gives us a city divided in two, I hope that Adriana Poli Bortone feels aware of the responsibility of keeping the city united.
Let’s leave whoever takes over a better situation than the one we found and this is what matters in the city’s interest. I hope that we continue in the same direction on the strategic themes that we have set in recent years, because there are truly many important opportunities to be seized for Lecce and the people of Lecce”.
Best wishes also arrive shortly Saverio Dismissal, Member of Parliament and Peovincial Coordinator of Fratelli d’Italia Lecce: “The people of the Center Right respond to the call to the polls for the runoffs. A great success by the Salento centre-right in the cities that faced the double round, Lecce and Copertino, demonstrates once again that the unitary project of the coalition parties is shared and can be shared. Particularly significant results also because they were achieved despite the deployment of forces massively deployed by the regional government.
Fratelli d’Italia, the first coalition party in Lecce, is ready to make its contribution to the good governance of the city.
Congratulations and good work to Adriana Poli Bortone and others Vincenzo De Giorginew mayors, and to all elected councilors”.
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Lecce also congratulated Adriana Poli Bortone Monsignor Michele Seccia: “May best wishes for good work in serving the common good go to Senator Poli Bortone. The people of Lecce have democratically chosen the mayor for the next five years and now it is up to the new mayor to welcome and transform the expectations of his fellow citizens into wise administrative choices.
I have always appreciated her love for this city but also her tenacity and courage as well as her skills. I cannot hide, however, that the person who binds me most to her is the archbishop Cosmo Francesco Ruppi of whom we both had the gift and the joy, albeit in different roles, places and times, of enjoying his friendship and his human and spiritual richness.
When in 2021 – recalls Seccia – we commemorated Don Cosmo in the cathedral on the tenth anniversary of his death, I had the opportunity to discover, also through the telling of some of the senator’s anecdotes, what a beautiful relationship united them not only from a human point of view but above all how their bond started from the search for the good of the city. How many ideas, how many projects and how many solutions arrived for Lecce in those years from the dialogue between the two: the local Church and the civic administration together, respecting the roles but with the sole objective of making the face of this city more and more beautiful city.
I don’t allow myself to make recommendations to the new mayor: he doesn’t need them, his experience is a great guarantee – adds the archbishop -. I only ask you to take care of the suburbs above all, to listen to the hardship and poverty that comes from some neighborhoods of Lecce. Families and lonely people who often choose hiding and silence in order to maintain a residue of dignity. I ask you to know how to invest your energies in young people who I see are increasingly attracted to escape to other shores; not to neglect the disabled and to work to combat the various forms of dependency.
I feel and have been a citizen of Lecce since my arrival in 2017 and the mayor, yesterday as today and in the future, will always find me at his side when it comes to engaging in projects that make this city increasingly welcoming, more inclusive, more supportive. More beautiful inside and out.”
