Italians vote for mayors as parties gear up for national election

ROME: Italians were voting on Sunday to elect municipal mayors in a test of political parties’ support ahead of a parliamentary election due to be held by next spring at the latest.

Some 9 million voters are electing mayors in more than 1,000 towns and cities, with runoffs to be held on June 25 where no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the initial vote.

The political climate ahead of the vote became even more febrile this week after a deal on electoral reform among the main parties broke down in parliament amid bitter recriminations.

The collapse of that accord seems to have reduced the chances of a snap election in the autumn but the broad coalition backing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is fragile and analysts say an early contest still cannot be ruled out.

Although Sunday’s vote is set to be one of the last before the general election, local factors mean it may not provide a clear reflection of the parties’ national standings.

Moreover, in many of the contests the main parties have taken a back seat and chosen to camouflage themselves in broad “civic list” coalitions rather than present their own individual candidates.

The largest city at stake is Palermo, where the current mayor Leoluca Orlando, a veteran anti-mafia campaigner backed by Italy’s ruling Democratic Party (PD) and other centre-left groups, is expected to see off his rivals from the centre-right and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

A closer contest is expected in the northern port city of Genoa, where the centre-right hopes to win control from the centre-left incumbent. The city is home to 5-Star’s founder, comedian Beppe Grillo, but the movement’s prospects there have dwindled due to a local internal split.

The centre-right, dominated by the Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, is favourite in Verona in the northeast, while the centre-left is expected to keep control of L’Aquila, capital of the central Abruzzo region.

The turnout at midday was 19 per cent, up from 13 per cent at the same time in the municipal vote five years ago, but then the elections were spread over two days.

Unusually, the highest turnouts among large towns on Sunday were in the south, with 27 per cent in Lecce, in the heel of Italy’s boot, and 22 per cent in Catanzaro, near the toe. The lowest turnout was in Genoa, with just 7 per cent.

— Reuters