In the end, the third time was the triumph. Palazzo dei Naxioti has a new tenant: it is Agatino Salvatore Bosco, 65 years old, who after the unfortunate parentheses of 2015 (when he came close to being elected by just three votes) and 2020, manages to crown a very long political run by winning the leadership of Giardini Naxos.
A victory with a historic flavor, which came at the end of a thrilling and against-the-odds head-to-head, which overturned the plans of the day before.
The fall of the “owl” strategy
The political data emerging from the Naxio polls is clear: the complex electoral machine set up by Salvo Puccio, a fifty-three-year-old geologist and leading exponent of the South Calls North movement, was not enough. Puccio, thanks to his solid administrative experience as former general director of the Municipality of Messina and his numerous regional positions, had presented himself at the starting line with an impressive barrage strategy. The candidate from Cateno De Luca’s camp could in fact count on 33 candidates for the City Council, spread across three lists: the main one and two “owl” lists (led by Rosalba Cannizzaro and Alfredo Elia Mandri) created ad hoc to capitalize on the cross-voting mechanism. An army of bearers of preferences which, however, broke down against the opinion vote and the desire for change among citizens, who evidently preferred to reward a more linear project.
The triumph of the “Giardini Model”
Supporting Bosco’s victorious sprint was a large heterogeneous but proven to be solid coalition, capable of bringing together the entire constitutional arc: from the centre-right parties to the Democratic Party, up to various deep-rooted civic forces in the area. A “very broad field” born with the sole objective of giving stability to the Ionian town and which the voters rewarded, recognizing Bosco’s tenacity in never having abandoned the Naxi community in these eleven years of opposition. The signs of a comeback had already been felt in the final stages of the electoral campaign. While the Puccio-Cannizzaro-Mandri trio secured the final rallies in Calcarone and in Piazza Municipio, Bosco had chosen a more widespread strategy across the territory, multiplying the stages and meeting citizens in three key macro-areas: Piazza Municipio, Pallio and the San Pancrazio-Schisò area. A capillarity that has paid off especially in the suburbs and historic neighborhoods.