Milan Mayor Letizia Moratti, Berlusconi’s candidate, trailed rival Giuliano Pisapia 41.6 percent to 48 percent in the race to control city hall in the premier’s hometown, preliminary results showed. The two will face a runoff May 29-30. Piero Fassino, of the opposition Democratic Party, was poised to win the mayoral seat in Turin, a manufacturing center that is home to Fiat SpA, while the opposition also won in Bologna. The ruling bloc failed to avoid a runoff in Naples.
The outcome is “a crushing defeat for Berlusconi and a clear sign of the rising discontent,” Lavinia Santovetti, an economist at Nomura International in London, said in an e-mail. The League “has implicitly lost along with Berlusconi,” making it hard for their ruling alliance to “continue as if nothing has happened” and keep governing until the parliamentary term expires in 2013.
As Berlusconi grapples with the fallout from corruption charges and allegations he paid for sex with a minor, the outcome was seen as a bellwether of his support in battleground cities such as Bologna, Naples, Turin and his base, Milan. He staked his personal reputation on the Milan race, putting himself at the head of his party’s ticket to bolster support for Moratti.
Runoffs
Pisapia fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff election. Virginio Merola, the Democratic Party candidate, had almost 51 percent of the vote in Bologna, a center-left stronghold. A Berlusconi-backed candidate fared better in Naples, where Gianni Lettieri won almost 39 percent of the vote and will face a runoff against Luigi De Magistris of the Italian Values party, led by former anti-corruption prosecutor Antonio di Pietro.
“Turning this into a referendum was a mistake because at the local level people vote for issues like trash collection and traffic and don’t appreciate pressure about national issues,” said Federigo Argentieri, professor of political science at John Cabot University in Rome. “If he loses Milan and Naples, it’s a hard blow because he’s head of the ticket in both cities.”
Popularity Polls
Berlusconi’s popularity has been hurt by allegations that he paid an underage nightclub dancer for sex. He also faces bribery, fraud and tax-evasion charges in three other trials related to his management of broadcaster Mediaset SpA before he entered politics. The voting also opened two days after Italy’s national statistics office said the economy expanded just 0.1 percent in the first quarter, one of the slowest paces of any euro country.
The prime minister’s rating among voters has slipped to the lowest since his re-election in 2008 as the scandals and the economy sap support. For the first time, more Italians would vote against his coalition if general elections were held now, with 41.5 percent backing the opposition and 41 percent the ruling group, Rome-based IPR Marketing said in a survey of 1,000 voters conducted April 14-16.
The League failed to win mayoral seats in the first round ballot across its northern base including Varese, a party stronghold. Leader Umberto Bossi told supporters last night that Berlusconi is costing the party votes, Italian newspapers including la Repubblica said, citing people close to the matter.
League Voters
“Berlusconi’s making us lose and it’s just the beginning if we don’t split from him,” an unidentified reader commented today on the website of La Padania, the League’s newspaper. “Politically, he’s sinking like the Titanic and if we don’t ditch him, we’ll be going down as well.”
Berlusconi, owner of the Italian soccer team AC Milan, had sought to tap his hometown popularity to boost support for incumbent Moratti. She campaigned to turn the northern city into a European financial center, while critics including Pisapia say its glut of offices dooms the plan to failure.
“These results also reflect disaffection toward the government on the part of the business class of the north,” Robert Leonardi, a senior lecturer in European politics at the London School of Economics, said by phone.
In the closing moments of a televised debate on May 11, Moratti accused Pisapia, an attorney, of having been convicted of stealing a car 26 years ago. Pisapia, who was acquitted of the charge on appeal, has said he will sue Moratti for slander.
Moratti, in comments carried on Sky TG24 last night, acknowledged that her campaign may have failed to talk enough about “concrete issues” that local voters care about, such as jobs, education and the economy.
Almost 72 percent of the 13 million Italians eligible voted in the municipal elections and turnout for provincial balloting was almost 60 percent, the Interior Ministry said on its website. Those levels were slightly below the previous local elections in 2010.
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