In Sardinia, Giorgia Meloni suffers her first electoral setback since 2022

In Rome,

The regional elections in Sardinia were to be the scene of a new victory for the right in power, a new trophy for Giorgia Meloni, reputed to be unbeatable, and who had imposed on her ally Matteo Salvini the choice of the right-wing candidate, Mayor Fratelli d 'Italia of Cagliari, Paolo Truzzu. Now, to everyone's surprise, the Five Star candidate, Alessandra Todde, 54, supported by the PD but not by the centrists who had presented their candidate, won on the razor's edge, with 45.4% of the votes. votes. This first electoral test in a long series serves as a wake-up call for the president of the council who had seen fit to make this election a referendum on her person, by imposing herself on all the posters in Sardinia.

Even if looking at it closely, the defeat can be put into perspective. Because this one-round regional ballot gives victory to the candidate who wins the most votes on his name, even if the lists of regional councilors who support him are in the minority. Which is the present case, the center-right coalition lists having won 49% of the votes according to provisional estimates, compared to 42.7% for the center-left lists. It is therefore first of all the nature of the ballot which allowed, with nearly 1000 votes in advance, the victory of Alessandra Todde.

Then, it is first and foremost a local vote, rather than a protest at the ballot box against government policy. And therefore, more than one vote against the right-wing candidate Paolo Truzzu, mayor of Cagliari for four years. While the city is invaded by construction sites which congest traffic flows, and whose completion is constantly postponed, its residents are very angry against the mayor's management. Who saw fit to have a “Trux” tattooed on his arm, a cross between his last name and DUX, the Duce’s nickname, and to show it off. All surveys on the popularity of mayors indicate that he is one of the least popular in Italy.

But Giorgia Meloni did not want the outgoing candidate, Christian Molinas - supported by Salvini's League - to run again, in order to rebalance the regions in favor of his Fratelli d'Italia party, and to reflect, she said, the nuances policies of the majority. “Giorgia Meloni has a problem, that of recruiting the ruling class,” comments political scientist Salvatore Vassallo, director of the Cattaneo Institute. But this disparity is not new for the center-right in Sardinia. Fratelli d'Italia has once again demonstrated that it does not have a suitable ruling class, and does not know how to choose its candidates. In any case, revenge or not, the voters of the League did not mobilize to elect him.

As for the management of the region itself, under the direction of outgoing governor Christian Salinas, a Sardinian separatist close to the League, it is also extremely criticized. If Salinas himself is involved in two preliminary investigations by the Cagliari public prosecutor's office for abuse of power and corruption, and saw his property, as well as those of six other suspects, seized for a total value of 350,000 euros, he is above all widely criticized for having abandoned the island's transport infrastructure and health services. Sardinia, which only lives on tourism for two months a year, suffers from an exodus of its young people and the lowest birth rate in Italy (rate of 1.1 children per woman), the region having twice as many deaths as births.

It is therefore precisely on these local themes of work, health and the fight against precariousness, but also by claiming to be anti-fascist, that the candidate of the left campaigned, and not on national policy. Alessandra Todde did not want the leaders of the Democratic Party and the M5S to come and support her during her campaign. Little known to the Sardinians themselves before her election, this Sardinian from Nuoro, born in 1969, graduated in computer science, worked abroad, in Boston, the Netherlands, Spain and England, partly in the field energy, partly in the technology sector. She returned to her native country just ten years ago.

Alessandra Todde was vice-minister of development at the Ministry of Business in the Conte II government, then in that of Mario Draghi. Entering the Five Star Movement very early on, she joined forces with its leader Giuseppe Conte. It is more particularly the large cities of Sardinia - Cagliari, Sassari, Quartu Sant'Elena and in her town Nuoro, which elected her with a large majority as the first Sardinian woman to the presidency of the region.

If the vote is local, its repercussions are already national. First on the left, where in the Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schlein's alliance strategy with the M5S was strongly questioned, it has emerged strengthened. In fact, its strategy of unity opens a new path to wrest other regions from the right in the coming weeks: starting with Abruzzo on March 10, where the entire left, including the center, is united behind a candidate from a civic list, Luciano D'Amico. Then in the process, Basilicata, Umbria and Piedmont. Even if the winning electoral strategy does not bode well for the ability of the enemy brothers of the center-left opposition, PD and M5S, to agree on a common program to govern together.

For the right especially, if the vote does not a priori change anything in the stability of the government in Rome, the poison of doubt and division has begun to act. While Giorgia Meloni imposed a very bad position on her allies on the basis of an error of analysis, they will want to make themselves heard. Starting with the leader of the League Matteo Salvini, who, if his party had a very bad score in Sardinia, will return to the charge to allow the governor of Veneto, the very popular Luca Zaia, great figure of the Northern League , to stand for a third term against Giorgia Meloni's attempts to wrest Veneto from the League. However, this requires modifying the law which limits the election of governors and mayors to two successive terms.

The atmosphere has changed: Giorgia Meloni is no longer invincible. At least until the Europeans on June 8, which puts the parties in competition, the war of attrition between Fratelli d'Italia and the League promises to last.