Dario Nardella, the new mayor of Florence

Dario Nardella, the new mayor of Florence

Author: Gayane Simonyan

Florentine people voted for the new mayor of Florence and for the European Parliament on Sunday 25 May.

The European Parliamentary Elections 2014 took place from 22 to 25 May, 2014 where 751 deputies should be elected. Voting started on Thursday in the UK and the Netherlands, with Latvia, Slovakia and Malta all casting their votes on Saturday. The final day of polls - 25 May- was closed with Italians voting for their preferred candidate.

Next day on 26 May, the results of the election show that the Democratic Party of Italy is the second largest national group in the European Parliament by number of seats after the German CDU/CSU's coalition.

According to the official results, the Democratic Party won the election, with 40.81% of the votes. The second is the Five Star Movement with 21.15% and Forza Italia third with 16.81%. of the votes.

The Democratic Party (PD) of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is now celebrating the victory in both local elections and European Parliamentary Elections.

The results of the local elections in Florence held on May 25 are evidential now, and the new mayor of Florence who came to replace Matteo Renzi is Dario Nardella (from the same party). The latter received about 60% of the votes in the traditionally left-wing capital of Tuscany.

Dario Nardella was born in Naples in 1975 and has been living in Florence since 1989. He is a French- Italian political analyst who is now a prominent entrepreneur in children's education services. He got his PhD in Constitutional Law and Environmental Law at University of Florence where he is currently Cultural Property Law professor.

In 2004 he was the youngest councilman elected for the Democratic Party, with the highest number of preferences in the Florence City Hall.

His vocation for politics and institutions can be expressed through his favorite quote by Lord Robert Baden Powell: "Try to leave this world a little better than you found it, feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best ".

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A Florentine Victory with Renzi on Top

Matteo Renzi

by Louisa Loring



Maybe you have been following the news behind Berlusconi and his recent expulsion from Parliament but Italian politics is a lot more complicated than that with a lot of important changes happening at the moment.  It seems that the news has been laden with news about Berlusconi but there is something new to report.  This past Sunday, the poles opened to vote for the new head of Italy’s Democratic party or sometimes called the Center-Left party with 2.5 million Italians flocking to cast their vote. 

Matteo Renzi, a young, charismatic 38-year-old Florentine has been very important for Italian politics in recent years, especially for Florence. He has been the mayor of Florence since 2009 and Secretary of the Democratic party since April 2013.  Quickly gaining popularity, Renzi became an image for change not only in Florence but also, for all of Italy.

This past Sunday, he ran for the head position of the Democratic party and took the win with his promise to free up labor markets and reduce the union’s power, amongst other things.  After winning the election, Renzi expressed how this will open a new chapter for Italian government and how this win shows urgency for change.  Renzi remarked, ‘[I have no intention] to make the government fall, but making it work so that it can deliver results’. 

With ambitions and intentions to run for prime minister in the future, the born and raised Florentine is bound to play a stable and important role in Italian politics in these years to come and is a man to be followed closely.

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