Municipal elections, first setback for the centre-right in three years

The call for elections in the third weekend of September did not really end until last weekend because, although it was clear what was happening with the government of seven regions and equally with "taglio" on the reduction of the number of national parliamentarians, the winner still had to be determined in many of the municipalities where the most voted candidate had not exceeded 50% of the votes.

In the case of the municipal elections, it is established by law that in these cases a "ballottagio" or second round must be held with the two most voted lists in the first round. What has been observed here is a clear victory of the centre-left over the centre-right: the former has managed to move from controlling 41 municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants to 51, while the centre-right sees its dominance reduced from 41 to 34.

This is the first defeat of the latter since the beginning of a winning cycle in the autumn of 2017, when they won the elections for the government of the region of Sicily. In this connection, it should be recalled that, in the last general elections, although the most voted party was the Five Star Movement with 32.6% of the votes, in terms of coalitions the winner was the centre-right, which took over 37% of the votes.

It is true that this advance of the centre-left with respect to the retreat of the centre-left must be suitably qualified. First of all, there was no really important city at stake in the renewal of the municipalities: Rome, Milan, Naples, Bologna or Florence, to give five examples of the most important, should not elect its councillors until at least May-June next year.

Secondly, in municipal elections the candidate counts much more than the party or political tendency he or she represents: you usually vote for a specific person who has managed to gain (or lose) the trust of the inhabitants of his or her municipality.

And, thirdly, it is in this world that the so-called "civic lists" come into play the most, with numerous formations running for a single town appearing alongside the initials of the main national parties. Let us look at the example of Lecco in Lombardy: alongside the PD, the main national party of the centre-left, up to three parties with only a local presence appeared on the same list (Environmentally, Con la Sinistra cambia Lecco and Fattore Lecco).

However, this is not an obstacle to detecting a reality that does affect national political life. For example, the observation that the winning party in the general elections (the Five Star Movement, which is to choose its new leader between 7 and 9 November this year following the resignation of Luigi Di Maio) is only sinking and sinking: if already in the government elections in each of the seven regions at stake the level of support dropped overwhelmingly compared to March 2018, a similar thing has happened with these municipal elections. Thus, if in the elections called this year to elect the alderman the Cinque Stelle candidates have obtained a support of 5.6%, just five years ago they had twice as much support, with 10.3% of the votes counted.

In the case of the PD, now under the leadership of the Roman politician Nicola Zingaretti, they have also lost support compared to 2015, when Matteo Renzi was the general secretary: from 17.2% of the votes achieved in 2015, it has fallen to 15.9%. A similar drop to that of Forza Italia, which fell from 9.8% to 6.7%. 

In the case of Matteo Salvini's Lega, the glass can be seen as half full or half empty: there is a clear rise compared to 2015 (when the Lombard politician had already been leading the party for a year and a half), from 11.8% to 13.4%. But it seems equally evident that the formation is deflating, since almost 29% of the inhabitants of these municipalities of more than 15,000 registered people voted for him in the European elections of 26 May 2019, which means that more than half of those who supported him a year ago have decided, for the time being, to abandon the first national party.

In fact, the only party that has clearly won the election, and which has been on a strong upward trend in recent years, is the Italian Brothers of the Roman Meloni: it has risen from 3.8% of the votes in 2015 to 7% in 2019 and has finally reached 8.1% in this municipal election. Meloni can add that the European conservatives have chosen him as the leader of their political tendency, so that, although Salvini is clearly ahead of his already direct rival Meloni, the leader of the Lega has a few months of discussion ahead of him as to who really holds the "leadership" of the centre-right.

In this connection, Salvini is paying for the serious mistake he made just before the European elections in May 2019: sponsoring an event in the Lombardy capital together with all the anti-European leaders has left him in a corner at a time when European funds are proving to be key to the recovery of the Union's economies. Meloni, on the other hand, was much more skilful and, although critical of the construction of Europe, has always remained within it, which is taking him to levels of popularity simply unthinkable a few years ago.

All this is no obstacle to a stubborn reality: the centre-right as a whole (even if it is now with Meloni on the rise and Salvini on the fall) is still far ahead of the centre-left in voting intention surveys, usually exceeding it by about ten points of voting intention.

And Salvini's party continues to be the favourite of the Italians, so that in the event of an early election the former deputy prime minister and head of the interior would have many ballots if he were to become prime minister, although of course, In order to receive the "incarico" of forming a government from President Mattarella (who will be in charge of the presidency of the republic until the end of January 2022), he will have to renounce his anti-European position completely, as the country, hand in hand with the PD, has regained its leading role in EU policy, and he cannot just give up.

It should be remembered that the Commissioner for European Affairs is none other than the former Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni; that Davide Sassoli, also of the PD, is president of the European Parliament (although it has been agreed that he will hand over his seat to the German Manfred Weber halfway through the term of office); and that, although Mario Draghi is no longer president of the European Central Bank, Italy is still present in key places, such as that of, for example, Andrea Enria.

Even so, although the centre-left coalition can now breathe more easily, it continues to face the permanent problem of the instability of the Cinque Stelle Movement, which refuses to allow the country to join the MES ("State-saving mechanism"), even though this would entail an automatic injection of $37 billion. In favour of the MES are Zingaretti's PD, Renzi's Italia Viva and Bersani's LeU (that is, the other three formations of the current government coalition), but without the votes of Five Stars, nothing can be done. Everything will depend, in this respect, on what happens to the leadership of this very peculiar formation, which is not at all clear given the level of division and confrontation that exists at the moment.

Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a senior researcher at the "Civismo" Foundation and author of the book Italia, 2013-2018. From chaos to hope (Liber Factory, 2018)