Once the mayor of the provincial capital is back in the saddle, the metropolitan council will also have to be reconstituted, as required by law. Federico Basile’s first official act at Palazzo dei Leoni was the decree calling the Council elections, set for Monday 27 July 2026. The polls will remain open from 8am to 10pm, while counting will begin on Tuesday 28 July in the council chamber. As in the 2025 elections (in that case too the vote was held on the 27th, but in April), the metropolitan council will be made up of 14 members but, it should be remembered, these are second level elections: that is, only the mayors and municipal councilors in office in the various municipalities of the province will vote.
The system provides for the so-called “weighted vote”: the weight of each individual preference will be determined by the segment of the population represented. If the Municipality of Messina will be able to express 33 preferences (the 32 councilors plus the mayor), to calculate the weight of each one it will be necessary to divide the percentage of the population represented (over 35% due to the presence in the highest bracket) by the number of voters and multiply the result by 1000. In practice, each preference expressed by the municipal councilors and by Basile will be worth 1,061 votes. In the immediate range (from 30,001 to 100,000 inhabitants) there is only Barcelona and each preference is equivalent, however, to a hundred votes. In the third band there are Capo d’Orlando, Lipari, Milazzo, Patti, Sant’Agata Militello and Taormina and then, in three other bands, all the other municipalities. The seats will be divided according to the classic D’Hondt method.