The increasingly probable candidacy of President Stefano Bonaccini for the European elections officially opens the fight for succession in Emilia-Romagna.
In reality, the great underground maneuvers have been underway for some time given that at the beginning of 2025, net of an unlikely introduction of the possibility of a third term, Bonaccini would still have had to end his experience.
If the candidacy for the European Parliament (and the consequent obvious election) were to materialize, the game would inevitably accelerate. Regional law in hand, the legislature could end, under the leadership of vice-president Irene Priolo, even at a natural deadline, but political prudence could advise the Democratic Party to bring the elections forward by a few months, also to avoid subjecting themselves to the foreseeable barrage of the opposition : the most probable scenario, therefore, is that in Emilia-Romagna we will end up voting in the autumn of this year, a sort of revenge after the European elections and the last appointment in a very busy electoral calendar.
The Democratic Party (together with the more or less large field that it will be able to aggregate) cannot afford to lose its symbolic region: at the moment the two names in pole position are Priolo herself and the mayor of Ravenna, Michele de Pascale who should however interrupt his mandate in advance. If this duel were to escalate too much, mediation names could emerge, such as the councilor for Labor, former CGIL, Vincenzo Colla or other aspirants who at the moment remain covered.
It is easy to foresee that it will not be a short or painless game and, in any case, it will not be played only at a local level: both because it is the Region of the secretary Elly Schlein, and because, regardless of who leads it, for the Democratic Party the Emilia-Romagna cannot, for a thousand reasons, be considered a region like the others.
An essential keystone, and not only due to the presence of the outgoing president Stefano Bonaccini on the list, will obviously be the result of the European elections. It will be so for the centre-left, but it will also be so for the centre-right which, for opposite and specular reasons, will attempt the historic feat of conquering a region where it has never governed. Even if Bonaccini's candidacy for the European elections has not yet been announced or confirmed, the attacks of centre-right representatives on the "captain who gets off the ship" have already begun.
Here the field of suitors is more unprotected: after the presidential candidate has been chosen by the League on the last two occasions, Fratelli d'Italia demands its turn. Galeazzo Bignami, deputy minister and plenipotentiary of the party in the region, has called himself out on several occasions. Even in this case, however, much will depend on national balances. If the regional elections in Emilia-Romagna will be the revenge of the European elections, they will in fact also be the appetizer of the regional elections in Veneto which will put an end to the Luca Zaia era, with a debate within the centre-right which will have a decidedly higher temperature.
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