Following the June 6 and 7 local elections where no candidate received 50 percent of the vote, a second ballot is needed to determine Florence’s next mayor. On June 21, a run-off vote will pit centre-left candidate and former president of the province Matteo Renzi, who received 47.57 percent of the vote, and centre-right candidate Giovanni Galli, who got approximately 32 percent of the vote.
Renzi expressed his disappointment with the results, as most public-opinion polls pointed to him as the probable winner. Because he failed to secure 50 percent or more of the votes, Renzi and Galli, called by the press, respectively, the ‘boy scout’ and the ‘footballer’, will face each other in the run-off. The race has attracted the attention of the entire country: the centre-right seeks to take hold of Florence, which has traditionally been a centre-left town and one of the most durable ‘fortresses of the left’ in Italy. Renzi has said that he will not seek alliances with any of the other parties from the first ballot, while Galli has declared himself open to ‘conversations’ with the former candidates.
