Premier Matteo Renzi's Democratic
Party (PD) was licking its wounds Monday after losing Venice to
the centre right for the first time in more than 20 years.
The defeat, coupled with a string of others across Italy,
forced Renzi onto the back foot against the rising force on the
right, the anti-immigrant and anti-euro Northern League of
firebrand Matteo Salvini, as well as the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement (M5S) of ex-comic Beppe Grillo, which got all
its five mayoral candidates elected.
Although Renzi had already played down the impact of the
local vote - which by contrast saw the PD win five of seven
regions two weeks ago - he was again obliged to say that it
would have "no effect" on his government's reformist agenda.
Analysts said it was undeniable that low turnout reflected
voter disenchantment which appeared to have hit the PD more than
other parties.
In the regional elections, it was calculated that the
ruling party lost around two million voters compared to last
time out - and a sharp fall compared to last year's other local
elections where nationwide it scored over 40%.
Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, on the other
hand, despite being recently overtaken by the League as top dog
on the right, called the vote "a clear blow" to the PD and a
sign that its own efforts to heal internal rifts might be
rewarded by a "resurgence" in support.
The League, with Salvini cock-a-hoop, went even further,
saying "Renzi we are coming for you" while the M5S said its
various wins - including its first in Piedmont, at Venaria -
showed that it naturally prospers under a two-round voting
system such as that used for local votes.
The local vote, therefore, could be a harbinger of greater
things on the national stage under a new election law,
envisaging run-offs if no party gets 40% of the vote, that
should be in place for the next scheduled general election in
2018.
Several M5S MPs said "we are the natural victors with the
Italicum," as the law has been dubbed.
Analysts said Renzi would have to address fears in the
party that the Italicum, far from favouring the PD as has
hitherto been widely forecast, might end up penalising it.
In Venice, businessman Luigi Brugnaro, running on a
center-right civic list with support from FI, took 53% of the
vote to beat former magistrate and Senator Felice Casson, who
got 46.7%.
This was a reversal of the first-round results, which saw
Casson taking 38% and Brugnaro 28.5%.
Analysts said the run-off outcome was due to a low turnout
of 48%, in which PD voters essentially deserted Casson while the
Northern League electorate flocked to Brugnaro's ticket after
its own candidate ran alone and lost in the first round.
Also weighing in was center-left voter disenchantment after
the arrest in June 2014 of former Venice mayor Giorgio Orsoni in
connection with a corruption scandal involving the funnelling of
25 million euros of taxpayer money into political campaigns and
away from MOSE, a 5.5-billion-euro system of retractable dikes
set to become operational in 2016 after decades of delays.
A former Venice mayor and widely respected political
pundit, Massimo Cacciari, said that the surprise result in the
lagoon city was "the perfect suicide" produced by scandal and
division.
Brugnaro, 54, is the son of a schoolteacher and a factory
worker and in 1997 founded Umana SpA, one of Italy's first temp
agencies.
Preliminary results showed the center-right candidate
obtaining an absolute majority on the city council, garnering 17
members for his center-right civic list. FI has three council
members, the League has two, the New Center Right (NCD) has one
and other civic lists have two council members.
Casson's list seated five councillors, while the PD came
away with three and the anti-establishment, anti-euro 5-Star
Movement (M5S) garnered three.
Elsewhere in Italy, the ruling PD lost Arezzo, hometown of
Refoms Minister Maria Elena Boschi, Matera in southern Italy and
Nuoro in Sardinia amid low turnout of just 47.11%, and prevailed
in Mantua and Lecco in Lombardy.
The current round of voting continued in parts of
Sicily on Monday, including the city of Enna, where a former PD
Senator was defeated, and Gela, where the M%S secured its fifth
success.
PD Deputy Secretary Lorenzo Guerini admitted that the
defeats in Venice and other cities had "burned" the centre-left
group.
But he also argued that, despite the losses, the PD
remained Italy's most widely supported party.
"The run-off featured areas of light and darkness," Guerini
said.
"Precise analysis (of the results) shows that the PD is
clearly Italy's top party...the defeat in Venice and in other
important cities such as Arezzo, Fermo, Matera and Nuoro burns".
"The fact that we won back cities of symbolic importance
like Mantua and Trani, while other good administrators held
their positions, beginning in Lecco, is not enough for us to
consider this result to be positive," he said.
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