The political climate in Messina is like that of many other election eves. As if we were voting in the next round of May-June 2026. In reality, the full mandate of the Basile Executive and the current City Council expires in June 2027, and therefore the electoral campaign should still be a distant time horizon. But there is fibrillation, you can feel it in the Town Hall and it is as if the acceleration (the usual acceleration, one might say), impressed by Cateno De Luca and his men, was forcing the other parties and alignments to announce their descent into the field, to study moves and strategies so as not to be found unprepared, if anything…
Why on earth should we vote in 2026, instead of 2027? Apparently, of any possible reasons, there isn’t one that holds up. The Administration is not, or does not appear to be, in crisis. The Council has never expressed its intention to initiate any motions of no confidence against Mayor Basile. There is an enormous amount of work still to be done, with construction sites scattered almost everywhere, with recently contracted projects, with in the background the problems linked to the announced start (but which is increasingly postponed) of the first works connected to the Strait Bridge. And not even the possible prospect of early elections in the Sicilian Region would justify a return to the polls ahead of time on the banks of the Strait.
The dynamics of politics are, however, strange, difficult to predict, even if they often repeat themselves in the same forms, albeit in different contexts. Everyone still remembers how and why Cateno De Luca’s experience as mayor of Messina lasted four years, and not five.
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