C-R Bucci shading C-L Orlando in first Liguria projections

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 28 - Centre-right candidate Marco Bucci was shading the centre left's Andrea Orlando in the first three projections of the Liguria gubernatorial race out Monday.
    Bucci was on 49% and Orlando 47. 5% in the first projection by SWG for La7, while the centre-right man was ahead by 49.8% to 46.5% in an Opinio poll for Rai.
    A second SWG-La7 projection had Bucci up by 49.6% to 47.3%.
    Bucci is a two-term and current mayor of Genoa while Orlando, a senior figure in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), is a former environment and justice minister.
    The vote is seen as a key test for the national government and opposition ahead of other closely watched races in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna on November 17-18.
    Premier Giorgia Meloni is banking on keeping Liguria and Umbria to score a 2-1 victory in the three contests, given that Emilia Romagna is tipped to go to the centre left.
    The Liguria vote was called early after former centre-right governor Giovanni Toti had to quit after becoming embroiled in an alleged corruption case.
    The polls are also seen as a test of the 'broad field' centre-left alliance featuring the PD, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) and other leftwing and centrist forces.
    Due to a veto by M5S leader and former two-time premier Giuseppe Conte, former PD leader and ex premier Matteo Renzi's centrist Italia Viva (IV) has been excluded from the broad field, at least for the moment.
    The broad field also features the Gren-Left Alliance (AVS) and the centrist Azione (Action) party of former industry minister Carlo Calenda, who has been in and out of the alliance.
    Renzi, a divisive figure on the centre left after his past steering of the PD to the political centre, a position it has lately abandoned to go leftwards under current leader Elly Schlein, is however eventually expected to be allowed into the alliance to give it a fighting chance of beating the government coalition in the next general election, currently scheduled to take place at the latest in 2027.
    On the government side, Bucci represents Meloni's ruling coalition of her rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI), the rightwing League of Deputy Premier and Transport and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini and the centre-right post Berlusconi Forza Italia (FI) party of Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
    In previous regional polls the centre left won Sardinia but lost Piedmont, Basilicata and Abruzzo to incumbent centre-right governors.
    The centre left lost the 2022 general election to Meloni's alliance because it failed to team up, and its repeated efforts to replicate the broad field at a national level have so far sputtered amid conflicting leadership ambitions between Schlein and Conte. (ANSA).