Runoffs in 13 Municipalities, Spotlight on Taranto and Matera

There are 13 municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants where citizens are called to the polls on Sunday and Monday 8-9 June to choose their mayor in the runoff .

The challenges involving Taranto and Matera are particularly significant , both because they are two provincial capitals and because of the political implications at the national and regional level that they entail. In the first round on May 25 and 26, the extra-large center-left: from Iv and Azione to M5s and Avs, conquered Genoa and Ravenna, snatching the first from the center-right. Success in Taranto and Matera would make the leaders of the opposition parties sing victory. But the two run-offs are announced as open. In the "city of the Sassi" the regional councilor of the PD, but without a Democratic Party symbol, Roberto Cifarelli, for the center-left, is competing on one side. On the other, the former director of the Apt Basilicata, Antonio Nicoletti, for the center-right. In the first round, Cifarelli obtained 43.5%, Nicoletti 37%. In recent days, Cifarelli has signed an alliance with Luca Prisco's 'Democrazia materana' (4.3% in the first round), but not with the M5s of the outgoing mayor Domenico Bennardi (8.3% on May 26) and with 'Progetto Comune' (6.8% of Vincenzo Santochirico). Hence, Nicoletti's hope of overturning the result of the first round. The success of Cifarelli, supported by Azione, could have repercussions in the Region, where, instead, the party headed by Carlo Calenda governs, amid tensions, with the center-right.

In Taranto, Piero Bitetti, representing the center-left, who received 37.39% of the preferences in the first round and who, for the run-off, also had the external support of the M5S, will compete with Francesco Tacente, head of a coalition of civic lists that reached 26.14%, but which, in the meantime, has received the official support of the entire center-right. This is how the agreement with Fratelli d'Italia, Forza Italia and Noi Moderati was defined, who had supported the candidacy for mayor of Luca Lazzaro, third, after the first phase, with about 19.40%. Tacente could already count on the support of UDC and Lega, which presented itself without a symbol, but with the wording 'Prima Taranto', adhering to the civic project. On the opposite front, the 5 Star Movement, strong with the 11% obtained by the mayoral candidate Annagrazia Angolano on May 26, rejected the alliance, but made an endorsement for Bitetti. The newly united center-right hopes to return to lead the city, after 19 years. The challenge will also involve other large municipalities such as Cernusco sul Naviglio, Lametia Terme, Massafra, Ortona, Saronno and Triggiano. A run-off also in the very small Abruzzo municipality of Bisegna (216 inhabitants). In the first round the two candidates obtained identical preferences: 83 votes. (