The centre left won Rome and Turin while the centre right held Trieste in mayoral runoffs in the remaining three regional capitals across Italy on Monday, after the centre left took Milan, Naples and Bologna in the fist round two weeks ago, making it a 5-1 score in Italy's big cities over the two rounds of voting.
The centre left also won six out of seven provincial capitals Monday, making the overall runoff score in the bigger cities eight to two.
In Rome, centre-left candidate and former economy minister Roberto Gualtieri thanked Romans for voting him in as their new mayor after projections showed him with an over 60%-40% lead over centre-right rival Enrico Michetti, who was hit by accusations of antisemitism just before the vote.
"Thank you Romans for this so significant result, by which I feel honoured. I'll put everything into it," he said. "I'll be the mayor of all Roman women and Roman men, and of all the city.
"An extraordinary piece of work is beginning to relaunch Rome and make it grow, to make it become more inclusive and to make it work.
"All the municipalities will be the fundamental engine for us, we want a city of quarters. I want to address all the social, economic and productive forces: it is time to realise a great pact for development and employment. I ask all the forces of this city, I ask everyone to participate for a great season of recovery".
He added." we must work to overcome and reduce abstentionism" after a record low turnout.
The two centre left and centre right candidates had prevailed in the first round over incumbent and formerly anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) Virginia Raggi, who was struggling with transport and rubbish woes as well as a wild boar invasion.
A leftwing newspaper unearthed a 2020 article by Michetti before the vote suggesting that the Holocaust was celebrated more than it merited because of the international financial clout of the Jews.
He apologised for it.
Centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta on Monday described the mayoral elections in Italy as "a triumphant victory" after they won five out of six big cities.
"I have always learned that the most important thing is to listen to voters," he said. "And they are ahead of us, they have rallied and merged, those of the centre left and the broad coalition that I decided to build," he said, referring to an alliance with the ex-populist M5S in most cities.
"With a triumphant victory."
Letta said "unity means better candidates, a broad coalition and a fundamental enlargement effort".
He said there should not be an early general election and the government should continue to be led by Premier Mario Draghi until the end of the parliamentary term in 2023.
From January, he said the PD will work towards achieving a broad majority to back a successor for President Sergio Mattarella, whose seven-year term is almost up.
In Turin, centre-left candidate Stefano Lo Russo dedicated his mayoral runoff win - which replaced another M5S mayor - to a late socially activist priest, Father Aldo Rabino, who "was a master for me, a father, a guide. A Salesian, and historic chaplain of Turin, Father Rabino, who did in 2015, started Lo Russo out on his career in volunteering and politics.
In Trieste, meanwhile, centre-right incumbent mayor Roberto Dipiazza kept his job with 51.29% of the vote compared to 48.71% for the centre left's Francesco Russo.
"I've won," Dipaiazza said, before phoning his defeated rival and vowing to work together on a major project to transform the Old Port.
Regional capitals Rome, Turin and Trieste were among 10 provincial capitals to hold runoff votes on Sunday and Monday, in elections in 65 cities involving five million eligible voters.
The other provincial capitals were Varese, Savona, Latina, Benevento, Caserta, Isernia and Cosenza.
The centre left won all these except for Benevento where popular longtime mayor and former justice minister Clemente Mastella, on an independent centre-right ticket, narrowly retained his job.
The centre left outdid the centre right in the first round, winning three of the six big cities up for grabs, Milan, Naples and Bologna, by getting over 50% and averting the need for runoffs.
Rightwing nationalist League leader Matteo Salvini said that "mayors elected by a minority are a democratic flop" due to the low turnout, with less than one in two eligible voters turning out.
He also said "we have more mayors than 15 days ago".
Hard-right Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni said it was a "defeat but not a debacles" for the centre right, which also includes ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party.
She said the debacles was fr the M5S, on whose remains the PD was allegedly preying.
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