Possamai surprise in the Vicenza challenge The dem are counting on the Tommasi-Corriere.it effect

The applause for the electoral committee starts when just an hour and 40 minutes have passed since the polls closed and the gap marks a dizzying gap: ten points. The advantage will drop to six points, then to four, then to two, the enthusiasm will continue to grow until it explodes in a room that will not contain the more than 300 people who have come: applause, stadium chants, uncorked bottles of champagne. Because here the dream was to get to the ballot against the outgoing center-right mayor Francesco Rucco to play it all in the second round, with the prediction of starting in pursuit. Instead, when Giacomo Possamai enters his headquarters, the bet for the return of the center-left to the government of Vicenza looks a little more like reality: in two weeks it will be Rucco who will have to chase the 33-year-old dem, current Pd group leader in the Region.

The centre-left which reaches 46.2% in the first round against 44.1%% of the centre-right it is an alliance that has been able to synthesise, a “civic” project above all, specifies the candidate who has nothing civic by reversing the roles with respect to the challenger Rucco, who has none of party cards in his pocket. An alliance that holds Pd, Left-Verdi, Third pole together, passing through three civic lists, including that of Matteo Tosetto, former councilor of Rucco and former coordinator of Forza Italia. It is the run-up to a young but not Schleinian party (Possamai is the political son of Enrico Letta, blessed by the historic mayor dem Achille Variati, who voted for Bonaccini in the primaries), which has kept national leaders away from the electoral campaign, unlike the opponent. The reply at Palazzo Trissino for Rucco started uphill despite the predictions, with two former aldermen candidates for mayor against him and in the center of the crossfire within his own majority. The ministers Giorgetti, Urso, Bernini and three times Salvini will come to the city for him: it will not be enough to pull the sprint. Rucco’s electoral committee remains half-empty, at 17.20 everyone was asked to leave given “the delicate moment”.

Possamai claims the strategy of merging six lists, planned with lifelong friend and co-founder of YouTrend Giovanni Diamanti, the communication expert of Sala, De Luca, Zingaretti, Nardella and Gualtieri, today also coordinator of the Possamai civic list. The figure is incredible, it is beyond all expectations – the dem says at the end of the evening – because being ahead of the outgoing mayor in the first round almost never happens, the center-right said it was 17 points ahead of us. And on the decision to keep the national leaders “at a distance”: “We didn’t keep anyone out – he explains – but this was a match against Vicenza. We characterized the competition on the local level while on the other side there was the parade of ministers. With the new course, the Democratic Party has regained consensus, but the Administratives are a different game. We have built a civic alliance, there are no recipes or solutions to suggest to the national team. This is the face of a centre-left that brings home an excellent result». The Democratic Party will be the second most voted list at 14.6% after Rucco’s civic at 24 and before that for Possamai at 13. FdI at 10, Lega at 6.4 and FI behind Iv-Azione at 3.4 .

Now the other candidates could converge on Possamaidespite Rucco trying to bring in his former travel companions: “We have a fragmentation of lists that took away the result here and there and they are certainly not centre-left: I hope they can find unity on our project”.

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