Back to the polls for the runoff elections. Italians prefer a trip to the seaside than returning to the polls
After the European elections of 8-9 June which crowned FdI and Pd first and second party in Italy but where 50.3% (+6.4% compared to previous European elections) deserted the polls now it’s time for the scheduled runoffs Sunday 23 June and Monday 24 June. This time the vote will serve to establish who will become mayor between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round on 8-9 June. The two candidates are on the ballot, for each municipality, which had more preferences without however managing to reach the threshold of 50% +1. In the runoff it will be enough to get more votes than your opponent, without the need to reach a specific percentage threshold.
There is no great expectation, indeed to be honest there is a sense of strong “tiredness” and a turnout of less than 50% is expected, with a few exceptions that confirm the rule of Italians who are disappointed and increasingly distant from politics and its games. Put another way, the majority of Italians are disheartened, convinced that whoever wins at the polls, even in the municipalities and regions, everything will remain as before.
Then, however, with data from the national vote of 8-9 June in hand, the centre-right/centre-left bipolarism is laboriously re-emerging in Italy with the FDL dominant in the first alliance and the PD once again becoming the pivot in the second alliance. The “predictions” on this ballot say a lot about the mood in Italy today: only 1 ballot out of 4 sees the results of the first round overturned and, just to give two examples, this does not appear to be the case in Florence, unlike what could happen in Urbino, where the new PD-led coalition was in great recovery on 8-9 June and could return to govern Raphael’s city. In short, apart from more or less politically significant exceptions, the days of non-contestable regions and municipalities are over, the days of “fortresses” are over, red or black, it’s all the same. In a high-tension international context, especially due to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, with Putin having just relaunched Russia’s alliance with Kim Jong-un’s communist Korea, in Italy the Meloni government has accelerated the reforms of premiership and differentiated autonomy (which is law) exhibiting them, precisely in view of the run-offs, as great achievements.
However, with the opposition – PD in the lead – on a war footing, the road to concluding the premiership is still long and uphill and, in addition to other parliamentary votes, a referendum will almost certainly also be needed, with all the consequent risks for Meloni and his government, a real boomerang as happened for former prime minister Matteo Renzi in 2016. Reform of the premiership and differentiated autonomy are not trivial issues. However, here today, after the European elections of 8-9 June and a few hours before the run-offs, these two important reforms are also used instrumentally by the opposition, Pd of the relaunched Elly Schlein in the lead. This second electoral round in two weeks to elect mayors and city councils will be played in 101 cities even if it is about 14-15 medium-large cities (primarily 12 provincial capitals) that this new and faded game between the center-right and the center-left will be played. It is not difficult to predict that Italians will prefer a day of holiday at the seaside to going back to the polls again for these run-offs which, whatever the result, will essentially leave everything as before.
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