By Angelo Amante
ROME, May 25 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing coalition won the Venice mayoral election, projections showed on Monday, retaining control of the most prominent city at stake in a round of local votes held across Italy.
Polling took place in more than 600 towns and cities in the first electoral test for the government since a bruising defeat in a justice referendum in March, a setback for Meloni that marked her most significant reversal since taking power in 2022.
Venice - where controversy flared in recent weeks over Russia's presence at the Biennale Art Festival - has been governed by the right for the past decade, but opinion polls published this month had pointed to a centre-left lead.
However, centre-right candidate Simone Venturini won nearly 51% of the vote, the latest projections showed, ahead of his main opponent's 39%, avoiding the runoff required when no candidate secures more than 50%.
Polling company Youtrend called the result for Venturini, saying the size of his lead meant the outcome was no longer in doubt.
"(Opposition) turned up in Venice convinced they could push the narrative that Meloni was finished, that the centre-right was in crisis. Then Italians went to the polls and those expectations ran up against reality," said Giovanni Donzelli, a senior lawmaker with Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.
The municipal votes were among the last before general elections due next year, with the two main political blocs increasingly viewed as neck-and-neck in a race that will shape the balance of power in 2027.
In Salerno, near the Amalfi Coast in southern Campania, Vincenzo De Luca was returned for a fifth term, after previously serving for 10 years as regional governor in a centre-left coalition.
In the Sicilian city of Messina, former Mayor Federico Basile - who is not aligned with either main coalition - secured a new term. The centre-right largely prevailed in Reggio Calabria, where the left had been in power since 2014.
(Reporting by Angelo AmanteEditing by Rod Nickel)
