ROME (Reuters) – Centre-left candidates are seen winning most of the big cities at stake in Italian local elections, exit polls showed on Monday, with Rome’s incumbent mayor Virginia Raggi of the 5-Star Movement headed for near-certain defeat.
Italy’s four largest cities — Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin — and more than 1,000 smaller centres held mayoral elections on Sunday and Monday, with a run-off due in two-weeks’ time in cities where no candidate reaches 50%.
Centre-left candidates are seen winning without the need for a run-off in the financial capital Milan, Naples and Bologna, according to the exit poll by Opinio Italia, a consortium of pollsters, for state broadcaster RAI.
The centre-left was favourite to sweep up in most of the cities, but the exit poll points to larger-than-expected margins of victory.
The outcome is a setback for Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, respective leaders of the rightist League and Brothers of Italy which dominate a conservative alliance that leads at national level, according to opinion polls.
However the rightist alliance, which includes Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, draws most of its support from small towns and villages.
Analysts say this makes it extremely risky to draw national conclusions from the mayoral elections.
Some 12 million Italians were eligible to vote out of an adult population of around 45 million.
Centre-left incumbent Giuseppe Sala was estimated to win 54-58% in Milan, ahead of the centre-right candidate on 32-36%, giving him control of city hall without the need for a run-off on Oct 17-18.
In Rome, the right’s Enrico Michetti was seen on 27-31% of the vote, virtually neck-and-neck with the centre-left’s Roberto Gualtieri, a former Economy Minister from the Democratic Party, on 26.5-30.5%.
However, Gualtieri is hot favourite to win the run off, when he is expected to take most of the votes of the candidates defeated in the first round, Raggi and Carlo Calenda, an independent centrist, who were paired on 16.5-20.5%.
In Naples the centre-left’s Gaetano Manfredi, a former minister backed by the PD and 5-Star, is seen winning easily in the first round, while in Turin the centre-left candidate has a clear lead but will probably need to go to the run-off.
In a consolation for the right, it was seen easily winning a regional election in southern Calabria.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Gavin Jones)
