The centre left won seven of the 18 Italian cities up from grabs in Sunday and Monday’s round of local elections, with Premier Giorgia Meloni’s coalition taking three, civic-independent candidates taking two and six set for run-off votes, the final results showed on Tuesday.
But the centre right took the big prizes, holding Venice and taking Reggio Calabria and Crotone.
In Venice, Simone Venturini beat the Andrea Martella to retain the lagoon city for centre-right after 11 years under Mayor Luigi Brugnaro.The centre right’s Francesco Cannizzaro scored a big win in Reggio Calabria over the centre left’s acting mayor Domenico Battaglia.
The centre left had governed the Calabrian capital since 2014.
Those wins and the victory in Crotone, where a civic list had been in charge, were a big boost for Meloni after the setback of her government’s Constitutional reform of the justice system being rejected a referendum in March.
The premier said the much-heralded collapse of the centre right has been “postponed again”.