An increasingly seething center-right, dented by the last referendum, is approaching the May local elections: 7.5 million Italians for local elections that smack of a political “verification”
They have been working quietly for weeks with a coming and going of aspiring candidates and beggars for seats and folding seats such as has not been seen since Silvio Berlusconi, in the early 1980s, went there for the first time to interview Gianfranco Fini who was looking for alternatives to Rai, guilty of not giving space to the tricolor flame. Other times may be said, but Niccolò Machiavelli teaches that things return.
In a month – on 24 and 25 May with possible run-offs on 7 and 8 June – almost 7.5 million Italians (14.5 percent of the entire electoral body) will go to the polls for local elections. And in via della Scrofa, Arianna Meloni and Luigi Donzelli are engaged in a decisive challenge. Not because of the proportions, but because of the stakes: if the center-right is reduced in size, after the defeat taken in the referendum, the consequences could be serious and unleash animal instincts among allies. They hope that the soundtrack of these administrative elections does not become Cursed Spring. Fratelli d’Italia has an obligation: to win! Not only to fill as many places as possible, but above all to not lose the momentum between now and twelve months, i.e. with the 2027 Policies.
Giorgia Meloni has to face a sort of “mid term” and gets there with an alliance, under the radar, increasingly quarrelsome and with a handicap that emerges forcefully in these hours. Fratelli d’Italia has grown so much and so quickly and it is not certain that it has self-sufficiency everywhere, even in terms of authority and popularity, of candidates for an administrative shift which presents some crucial appointments. In some cases it suffers the diktats of the League which must try to mitigate the Vannacci effect and the vetoes of Forza Italia, which if it is not distant certainly wants to be distinct. In short, Fdi militants often feel like water carriers and, despite iron party discipline, not everyone likes it. So much so that this nomination campaign is characterized by leaps forward. Hence the extraordinary performances of Arianna and Donzelli.
In truth, even the wide field suffers from friction and divisions. Wherever the Democratic Party has resorted to primaries it has almost always been defeated and the caciques so disliked by Elly Schlein are the only hope of success. The stakes are high for them too. Almost 900 municipal councils are renewed and the mayors of 122 municipalities with over 15 thousand inhabitants are elected, including 20 capitals (with Venice which is also the regional capital).
For the centre-right the challenge is decisive (the last time in the capitals it ended 12 to 6 for the Democratic Party; in two cases civic candidates won). For Giorgia Meloni it is a question of confirming the leadership towards the allies, but also of redesigning the geography of consensus: in Puglia, in Campania it will be measured whether the centre-right has recovered its attractiveness, in Tuscany whether it is able to hold the few cities it has conquered, in Veneto as in Lombardy it will be a question of “weighing” the League, in Calabria the Reggio challenge becomes decisive in relations with Forza Italia and then there is the unknown of the Marche which is perhaps the most worrying electoral stage for the Brothers of Italy. In September it reconfirmed the presidency of the Region with Francesco Acquaroli – one of the most accredited Meloni-boys – but is forced to accept the imposition of the mayoral candidate by Matteo Salvini in Macerata (the city where the centre-right performed worst ever in September) with the reconfirmation of Sandro Parcaroli, who is struggling to put together a League list, divided into three sections, and forced to resort to a civic profile supported by some traders. Macerata is the classic example of the Brothers of Italy leaving the mayor to others, in the hope of filling up with councillors, to avoid the clash between the old militants coming from the National Alliance and the new arrivals in the wake of Giorgia Meloni.
Even in Fermo there is a completely peculiar situation. Supporting the centre-right is Paolo Calcinaro, who left his seat as mayor to become regional health councilor last October. He has an ironclad pact with Guido Castelli, Fdi senator and reconstruction commissioner, with whom he created a civic coalition in the regional elections that earned him the record number of preferences in the centre-right which, however, split in Fermo. The outgoing councillor, from the centre-right council, Alberto Scarfini is running with a coalition of civic members, Leonardo Tosoni of Fratelli d’Italia is going alone.
Giorgia Meloni risks losing an opportunity in Prato. The vote is being held there because the mayor of the Democratic Party Ilaria Bugetti, involved in a corruption investigation, has resigned. It would be a historic opportunity for the center-right except that it appears divided. Mario Adinolfi proves that the match is tempting: after the TV disaster on the Island of the Famous he chose Prato for a political comeback: he is running under the banner of Il Popolo della Famiglia. The League – here where a third of the population is Chinese – has imposed its candidate, Claudiu Stanasel, Romanian, leader of the League group in the Municipality. Therefore Claudio Belgiorno, municipal councilor of the Brothers of Italy for two terms, has decided to run with his own list.
Luigi Brugnaro’s season ends in Venice and the centre-right agrees to join the young Northern League member Simone Venturini, but there the unknown is called Luca Zaia and the continuous landslide – especially in the Vicenza and Verona areas – of Salvinians towards Forza Italia. Who raised his voice in Reggio Calabria and demanded the re-nomination of Francesco Cannizzaro, but did not hesitate to break the centre-right front in Salerno where the large camp crumbled under the blows of Vincenzo De Luca, who is running without the symbols of the Democratic Party which his son Piero, regional secretary of the Democratic Party, has denied him. There Forza Italia decided, together with the UDC, to support Armando Zambrano, while Fratelli d’Italia and Lega are aiming for Gherardo Maria Marenghi.
In Lombardy, Fratelli d’Italia made the most of the two candidacies in Mantua (Raffaele Zancagli) and Lecco (Filippo Boscaglia) to try to wrest the two capitals from the left, but the negotiations lasted months.
In Puglia, a mission impossible is that of Sabino Napolitano, imposed by the Brothers of Italy in Andria, while in Trani the center-right chose an independent: the urologist Angelo Guarriello because the agreement was impossible. Just as in Abruzzo, in Chieti, where to beat a character like Giovanni Legnini, former vice-president of the CSM and who was everything in the Democratic Party, and wrest the Municipality from the left, one goes in no particular order. The League nominates Mario Colantonio, Fratelli d’Italia focuses on Cristiano Sicari.
Even in Sicily the center-right goes in no particular order to Messina, Enna and Agrigento. The glue Giorgia Meloni was not enough to close the ranks, so around Palazzo Chigi someone is already mentioning: Damned spring.
