With three clear wins from favored candidates – Alberto Stefani, Antonio Decaro And Roberto Fico – The final rounds of the 2025 regional elections ended in Veneto, Puglia and Campania respectively. If the results are obvious from the start, that’s what they areabstainism which in this election cycle has taken mass form, transforming itself into a “first party” with an overwhelming absolute majority. The decline in voter turnout, estimated at around 14% compared with previous regional turnout levels, suggests that is over four out of ten voters they decided to go to the polls, a figure that highlights the deepening gap between political representation and the real state.
Zaia’s effect on Veneto regional elections: League deputy since 2018 and former mayor of Borgoricco, Alberto Stefanithe man placed by Matteo Salvini on the center-right asserted himself with 65% over Giovanni Manildo (still around 29%), the former mayor of Treviso. The surprise, in the Northern League-led area, came from a former Northern League member and free vaccine doctor Riccardo Szumskiformer mayor of Santa Lucia di Piave, in the Treviso area, where he received 43% of the vote: his list, “Resistere Veneto”, exceeded 5%. Marco Rizzo of Democrazia Sovrana Popolare collected 1.09%, Fabio Bui of “Popolare per il Veneto” gained 0.51%. In Campania, former president of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, topped Deputy Foreign Minister Edmondo Cirielli, with 60% to about 35%, while Giuliano Granato of Campania Popolare got 2%, Nicola Campanile of “Lista PER” missed one percent, Stefano Bandecchi of “Dimensione Bandecchi” scored 0.49% and Carlo Arnese of Forza del Popolo 0.17%. The center-left can also rejoice in Puglia, where former mayor of Bari and former president Anci, Antonio Decaro won over Luigi Lobuono, a businessman and public figure close to Forza Italia, with 65% to 35%. The first from outside, Ada Donno, who is backed by the list cartel to the left of the field, “Puglia pacifista e popular”, got only 0.7%, followed by Sabino Mangano, from the “Civic Alliance for Puglia”, with 0.2%.
The mainstay of the regional elections this time is of course abstention, a symptom of the end of the democratic participation model. Overall data fromnumber of voters stop at 43.64% compared to 57.60% in the previous election in the same area. The biggest decline in voter turnout occurred in Veneto, where by some estimates, the electoral battle was more predictable and less interesting: only 44.65% voted against 61.16% five years ago, or down almost 17 percentage points. Followed by Puglia where the number of people going to the polls was 14.61% less than in 2020 (41.82% versus 56.43%) and, finally, Campania, where the decline was smaller, but the point of comparison based on previous regional elections was already the lowest: 44.06% versus 55.52% in Vincenzo De Luca’s last victory. There tendency not to vote this was also seen in other electoral tests, in Marche, Tuscany, Calabria and Val D’Aosta. Even so, turnout has fallen by almost 10%, failing to reach the 50% threshold in Tuscany (47.4%) and Calabria (43.15) and barely touching the threshold in Marche.
The real political essence of this post-conflict regional election is not in the results, which simply confirm the expected balance, but in the results of the electionthe party’s inability to bring voters back to the pollsopens up inevitable reflections on the consequences of a democracy that is increasingly losing touch with social citizenship. Election disengagement is caused by structural causes, which are related to demographic and social changes, are contingent, and have predictable results, but most importantly they are systemic, caused by party crises and the loss of political identity. The issue of abstentions was the subject of several warnings from the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who a few days ago, at the assembly of the national association of municipalities (Anci) in Bologna, spoke about the “alarming decline in the number of votes”. “We cannot be satisfied with any one thing low intensity democracy», the Head of State warned, stressing that dissatisfaction with the elections cannot be resolved by legislative alchemy, but by inviting citizens to return to the polls. The Head of State indirectly raised a hypothetical topic reform of election lawbeing discussed at center-right. “There is no dogma, but we believe a new election law is necessary to ensure stability,” he said Giovanni Donzelliresponsible for the organization Fratelli d’Italia, commenting on the results of regional elections. Confusion arose from the opposition: the leader of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, interpreted the announcement as motivated by the right’s “fear of defeat”, not by the structural needs of the system.
Post-election, abstainers win: only 4 out of 10 voters appeared first on L’INDEPENDENTE.
