The vote in Molise in numbers: FI doubles the League, the M5S loses 35 thousand votes

More than for the centre-right – the victory of the government coalition and Francesco Roberti was predictable – the regional elections in Molise had to be a test to verify the state of the art on the left, that campolargo to be rebuilt in order to create, in the words of Elly Schlein, “the alternative to the right”. But in the morning following the defeat, the Pd secretary has not yet expressed herself publicly on the disappointing result: the center-left alliance, between Pd and 5 stars, is not taking off. Rather it flies low, very low, despite the fact that the dem leader and the grillino president Giuseppe Conte – he too has not received, in these hours, the outcome of the vote – have recently resumed being seen together.

They also did it in Campobasso, on the occasion of the closing of the electoral campaign for their Roberto Gravina, immortalized by an iconic shot around a café – there was also Nicola Fratoianni of the Italian Left. An image that came in handy above all for the newspapers or to recall the custom according to which, from Vasto to Narni, the group photos on the left don’t bring much good: this time the candidate stopped at 35.25 percent, with 54,884 preferences .

Roberto Gravina was the face of the 5-star Movement, on which even the dem had decided to focus to try to stop the long wave that conquered all the latest regional trials from Palazzo Chigi, from Friuli to Lombardy, passing through Lazio. The added value had to be represented by the fact that Gravina is mayor of Campobasso, the largest electoral pool in the region. He didn’t even manage to win at home: he reached 48 percent as well as his opponent Roberti, who is mayor of Isernia instead. Here, however, the regional proportion was roughly respected: 64 percent for the center-right against 30 percent for the center-left.

Of course, the conditions for beating the Molise projections of the government alliance weren’t the most optimistic, but the defeat could just as certainly have been different. And looking at the data, it is clear how it was precisely – yet another – Grillino’s electoral thud that weighed on the extent of the defeat, never capable of being incisive at a regional level with one of their own candidates, and in a very clear decline in this round. Perhaps the turnout did not help either, at 47.95 per cent, down from 52.17 five years ago, despite voting only on Sundays.

In 2018, the pentastellata list in the running alone had obtained 45,886 votes (31.57 percent), while 38.50 percent of the voters had expressed themselves for the candidate Andrea Greco. Yesterday Giuseppe Conte’s party fared much worse: 9,966 preferences equal to 7.09 percent. The Democratic Party held a little better, gaining prevalence compared to the last elections and in the photo finish it surpasses Forza Italia, becoming the second force in the region, after the Brothers of Italy. But it is a small consolation: the Dems still win only 12.02 percent of the votes (16,910). In 2018, the consents had been 13,122 and they were not even worth 10 percent.

On the other hand, net of a few shots in favor of the camera and a few small appearances in the square, Conte and Schlein have not yet put in place a credible proposal for an alliance. Worried rather not to be crushed by the image of the other, to fill the empty spaces on the left rather than to erode the consents of the sovereigns. The main objective of the two main political forces of the center-left seems to be next year’s European elections, when voting will be with proportional representation, and this helps better frame the movements of the grillino leader and the dem secretary.

And in this scenario – with another, weak, electoral agreement – the right once again slipped in, winning another election and confirming the presidency of Molise obtained 5 years ago with Donato Toma. “A result that honors the memory of Berlusconi“, said Antonio Tajani hotly, commenting on the 12 percent obtained by his party in the region: doubled the League, at 6 percent. “Another great success, obtained thanks to the work of the united centre-right, which confirms the solidity of the government coalition“, Meloni’s words, of the same sign. In 2018 his Fratelli d’Italia was at 4.45 percent, yesterday it reached 18.85 percent. First party, by detachment.