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Roundup: Undecided voters crucial in Italy's mayoral elections

Xinhua, June 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

The campaign for mayoral elections in Italy came to a close on Friday, with national political leaders standing by their best local candidates in a final effort to win unconvinced, and possibly crucial, voters.

Although held at the local level, the vote could prove an arduous test for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD), which recently appeared to lose ground against rival parties, and especially Eurosceptic forces, in some key contests.

Over 1,300 cities and towns will elect new mayors on June 5, and 13.4 million Italians are eligible to go to the polls, according to interior ministry data.

If no candidate exceeds 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a run-off will be held between the first and the second best contenders on June 19.

All eyes were on the main cities involved in the voting, namely, the northern cities of Milan and Turin, Bologna in central Italy, Rome, and Naples in the south.

The anti-establishment, Eurosceptic party Five Star Movement (M5S) closed ranks behind its candidate in Rome, with leader Beppe Grillo speaking via video link.

According to the latest opinion polls carried out mid-May, PD-backed candidates were favorites only in Turin and, less clearly, in Milan, which is Italy's main economic hub.

The Index Research Institute's poll credited Piero Fassino, the current mayor of Turin and PD's major figure, with 39.5 percent and M5S's candidate Chiara Appendino with 30 percent.

Giuseppe Sala, Renzi's chosen candidate and former head of Milan Expo 2015, was put at close distance with his center-right direct rival Stefano Parisi in Italy's second largest city. They were respectively at 38 percent and 38.5 percent, and vice versa, in the two last Index Research Institute surveys.

The campaign proved even more uncertain in the most crucial contest over Rome's mayoral candidate.

M5S's contender Virginia Raggi was credited with 27 percent of the vote against rival PD's candidate Roberto Giachetti with 23 percent.

Finally, incumbent leftist mayor and former prosecutor Luigi De Magistris was expected to win again in Naples, and put his center-right rival well behind. Here, the PD's candidate was in the third position, and not far ahead of the M5S's contender.

Overall, undecided voters would amount to one third of eligible voters on Sunday, and will be crucial to the final result in all of the big cities (except perhaps Naples), according to major media analysts.

On Friday, Renzi stressed "this electoral campaign will be relevant for the cities, not the government," Ansa news agency reported.

Yet, an adverse response might indeed weaken the ruling PD party's image overall, and would send a worrying signal to the Italian cabinet only few months ahead of a referendum on the recently approved constitutional reform, on which Renzi's own future is at stake. Endit