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Italy’s mayoral election results: Right claims historically leftwing cities

A centre-right coalition led by Italy's nationalist League won an extra seven cities in mayoral elections on Sunday, including strongholds of the left that elected their first rightwing mayor in more than half a century.

Published: 10 June 2019 11:04 CEST
Italy's mayoral election results: Right claims historically leftwing cities
Italy's centre-right has another reason to celebrate after mayoral elections. File photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

In a second round of voting the city of Ferrara swung right for the first time since 1950, while Forlì ended 50 years of leftwing governance. Both are in the region of Emilia-Romagna, the heart of the traditional 'red belt' of leftwing voters across northern-central Italy that has shown drastic erosion in recent elections.

Matteo Salvini, head of the League and Italy's prominent deputy prime minister, called the victories “extraordinary”. They come on the heels of triumphant European elections two weeks ago in which his party won more than a third of the vote.

In total, his coalition – which also comprises the centre-right Forza Italia and far-right Brothers of Italy – added an extra seven provincial capitals to its tally after Sunday's run-off vote, including Pavia and Biella in the north, Pescara in the centre and Vibo Valentina in the south.

Combined with the first round of voting two weeks ago, that leaves the centre-right in charge of 12 provincial seats.

READ ALSO: How Italy's migrant model town Riace veered far-right


Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

The centre-left, meanwhile, has 14, having taken Rovigo in Veneto from the centre-right and Livorno in Tuscany from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement but lost six mayors. Most of its wins were 'holds' in places where city hall was already controlled by the left, including Florence, Bari, Prato and Reggio Emilia.

“Great victories and great holds,” commented the head of the Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti, which leads Italy's progressive opposition.

“There's an alternative to Salvini and it's a new centre-left. And this is only the start.”

The Five Star Movement, which governs in coalition with the League but runs against it in elections, won the one and only provincial capital where it was still in the running after a disastrous first round: Campobasso in Molise.

In total 136 towns and cities voted in Sunday's second round, out of 3,778 that took part in the first round on May 26th. Neither of Italy's biggest cities, Rome and Milan, were involved, following a different electoral schedule that will see them next elect a mayor in 2021.

Turnout on Sunday was down by around 16 percent: 52.1 percent of voters came back for the run-off, compared to 68.2 percent in the first round.

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POLITICS

‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

Media freedom in Italy has come increasingly under pressure since Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government took office, a group of European NGOs warned on Friday following an urgent fact-finding summit.

Published: 17 May 2024 17:40 CEST
‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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