By Angelo Amante
ROME (Reuters) -Italy's leftist opposition and ruling parties held their ground in regional votes, provisional results showed on Monday, wrapping up a round of races in 2025 that saw no signs of any breakthrough for challengers to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
In the last votes due this year, the opposition kept two southern regions, while Meloni's bloc held onto Veneto in the north, according to YouTrend pollsters.
In all, none of the six regions at stake changed political sides in 2025, signalling that the opposition had failed to gain momentum in the run-up to the national poll due by 2027 - essentially good news for Meloni.
The last three regions to vote on Sunday and Monday were Campania, the region comprising Naples; Puglia in the south-east; and Veneto, the north-eastern conservative stronghold that includes Venice.
In a post on social media platform X, Meloni congratulated all the winning candidates and asked them to "carry out their mandate in the best possible way, in the interest of the citizens they will represent."
On the centre-left, Roberto Fico, a leading member of Giuseppe Conte's Five Star Movement, won in Campania and EU lawmaker Antonio Decaro took Puglia, while national deputy Alberto Stefani won Veneto for the right-wing bloc.
The vote in Campania was seen as particularly crucial for former prime minister Conte, as he managed to impose his candidate in a region previously led by the Democratic Party, the larger opposition force.
According to a YouTrend poll, Conte is the most popular prime ministerial candidate and Meloni-challenger among opposition bloc voters, with 43% backing him against 29% for the PD's Elly Schlein.
Stefani won more than 60% of the vote in Veneto, projections showed, in a show of strength for Matteo Salvini's League party after tough negotiations over the candidate with Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.
Average turnout was 43.6% across the three regions, official data showed, well below the previous 57.6%, confirming a declining voting trend in Italy.
"Such low turnout rates weaken our democratic institutions," PD lawmaker Federico Fornaro said in a statement.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Alvise Armellini and Andrew Heavens)
