Partito democratico primary

One of my first posts here involved the primary election to be held by Italy’s Partito democratico (PD) on November 25.  The two leading candidates for the party leadership were Pierluigi Bersani, 61 years old and the party’s current national secretary; and Matteo Renzi, 37 years old, mayor of Florence, and challenger of the party’s gerontocracy.  At that point, at the end of September, polls seemed to show the two about even.  As it turned out, the vote yesterday was not that close.  Bersani received 44.9 percent and Renzi 35.5 percent.  They will face each other in a run-off vote next Sunday, December 2.

The percentages for each of the five candidates were:
Pierluigi Bersani            44.9%
Matteo Renzi                 35.5
Nicchi Vendola              15.6
Laura Puppato                 2.6
Bruno Tabacci                 1.4

(Although it’s not clear on what basis, Renzi has challenged these results.  He claims Bersani’s vote should be 43.4 percent and his own 38.8 percent.)  Clearly the question is where Nicchi Vendola’s voters will go.  Vendola, the president of the Puglia region, is considered an environmentalist and the most “left” of the candidates.  Interestingly, it was to Bersani that Vendola directed the suggestion that to claim his voters Bersani would need to offer a profumo di sinistra (literally, a "scent of the left").

The total number of voters (3.1 million) was the same as in 2009 and below the party’s primaries in 2007 (3.5 million) and 2005 (4.3 million).  Still, observers saw the turnout as an indication that anti-political attitudes among Italians may not be as strong as has been thought.