Mayor of Venice

Podestà (1806–1866)

Podestà of Venice were appointed since 1806 to 1866 by the rulers of the city during the early- to mid-19th century: Napoleon and the Habsburgs.

• 1806–1811 — Daniele Renier
• 1811–1816 — Bartolomeo Gerolamo Gradenigo
• 1817–1818 — Marco Molin
• 1818–1827 — Francesco Calbo Crotta
• 1827–1834 — Domenico Morosini
• 1834–1837 — Giuseppe Boldù
• 1838–1857 — Giovanni Correr
• 1857–1859 — Alessandro Marcello
• 1860–1866 — Pierluigi Bembo

Kingdom of Italy (1866–1946)

In 1860, the nascent Kingdom of Italy created the office of the Mayor of Venice (Sindaco di Venezia), chosen by the City council:

Italian Republic (1946-present)

From 1946 to 1993, the Mayor of Venice was chosen by the City Council:

• Coalitions:

  Centrist (DC);   Center-left (DC and allies);   Leftist (PCI and allies).

Notes

Since 1993, under provisions of new local administration law, the Mayor of Venice is chosen by popular election, originally every four, and later every five years:

	Mayor of Venice			Took office	Left office	Party	Coalition		Election
10			Massimo Cacciari	9 December 1993	25 January 2000[3]	Independent		PDS - PRC - FdV 9 December 1993 – 17 November 1997	1993
								PDS - PPI - PRC - FdV 17 November 1997 – 25 January 2000	1997
			Corrado Scivoletto	25 January 2000	30 April 2000			Special Commissioner
11			Paolo Costa	30 April 2000	18 April 2005	PPI / DL		DS - PPI - PRC - FdV - SDI - PdCI 30 April 2000 – 18 April 2005	2000
(10)			Massimo Cacciari	18 April 2005	30 March 2010	DL / PD		DL / PD 18 April 2005 – 30 March 2010	2005
12			Giorgio Orsoni	30 March 2010	13 June 2014[4]	PD		PD - FdS - FdV 30 March 2010 – 13 June 2014	2010
			Vittorio Zappalorto	13 June 2014	15 June 2015			Special Commissioner
13			Luigi Brugnaro	15 June 2015	incumbent	Independent		FI — AP and other right-wing Independents since 15 June 2015	2015

Timeline

Mayoral and City Council election, 1993

The election took place in two rounds: the first on November 21 and the second on December 5, 1993.

For the first time under the new electoral law citizens could vote directly the mayor; before this choice was made by the City Council.

For the first time a center-left coalition, composed by the former communist Democratic Party of the Left and some other progressives party (such as the new-born Federation of the Greens and the Communist Refoundation Party), presented its candidate: Massimo Cacciari. He was an independent venetian philosopher, who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party. The main opposition to Cacciari's coalition was represented by Aldo Mariconda. Mariconda was a businessman and member of the regionalist Lega Nord-Liga Veneta, which combined Venetian nationalism and a strong support for fiscal federalism. Liga Veneta, as regional faction of the national Lega Nord party, had a liberal, centrist and economically libertarian outfit due to the political upbringing of its early leaders and a more conservative electoral base.

Despite the strong performance of Mariconda on the first round, Cacciari managed to win the election on the second round gaining the support of the moderate and centrist voters of the agonizing Christian Democracy party. On December 5, 1993 Cacciari won the election and became the first elected mayor of Venice.

Summary of the 1993 Venice City Council election results

Mayoral and City Council election, 1997

The election took place on November 16, 1997.

The outgoing mayor Massimo Cacciari, supported by Prime Minister Romano Prodi's center-left coalition, heavily defeated Mauro Pizzigati, supported by Silvio Berlusconi's center-right alliance.

Summary of the 1997 Venice City Council election results

Mayoral and City Council election, 2000

The election took place in two rounds: the first on April 16 and the second on April 30, 2000.

The snap election was held in April 2000 after the incumbent mayor Massimo Cacciari resigned in January to run as the main center-left candidate for the regional elections. While on the first round about 72% of the venetian voters went to the polls, thanks to the fact that the election took place the same day of the regional elections, on the second round the turnout was extremely low, probably because the election occurred on the first Sunday after Easter, immediately before the International Workers' Day, and most of voters were outside Venice.

The main candidates were Paolo Costa, a member of the center-left Italian People's Party and former Minister of Public Works (1996–1998), and Renato Brunetta, a center-right venetian MEP. Gianfranco Bettin, a notorious environmental activist, run as the main candidate of a leftist coalition. For the first time the regionalist Lega Nord party decided to not present its own mayoral candidate and to be a part of the center-right alliance.

In the first round of the election, Brunetta got 39% of the votes and Costa 38%. Then on the second round Bettin, who got 16% of the votes on the first round, decided to officially sustain Costa and signed a pre-electoral alliance with him just a week before the run-off. On April 30 Costa easily defeated Brunetta and, since on the first round no coalition obtained more than the 50% of the votes, the majority bonus granted by the electoral law was given to the center-left coalition and its fresh leftist allies despite the center-right had received more votes.

Summary of the 2000 Venice City Council election results

Mayoral and City Council election, 2005

The election took place on two rounds: the first on April 3–4, the second on April 17–18, 2005.

The candidates were in total eleven, some supported by independent lists. The main candidates were: the philosopher and former mayor Massimo Cacciari, who were supported by the center-left moderate party The Daisy; the magistrate Felice Casson, who was supported by a broad center-left coalition; and the businessman Cesare Campa, who was supported by a center-right alliance between Forza Italia and Union of Christian and Centre Democrats. Differently from the precedent election, both the main coalitions were completely divided: the former center-right coalition was now fragmented between three different candidates, while the center-left was broken in two part, one moderate and one radical.

After an hard battle, Massimo Cacciari was able to obtain 23% of the votes, overtaking Campa in order to participate in the run-off election with Casson. Despite the first round result, after a shocking vote counting, Casson was narrowly defeated by Cacciari who probably gained the support of the center-right voters. Two years later, however, when Democrats of the Left and The Daisy merged into the Democratic Party, Cacciari had a majority even greater in the City Council.

Summary of the 2005 Venice City Council election results

Mayoral and City Council election, 2010

The election took place on March 28–29, 2010.

Giorgio Orsoni, supported by a center-left coalition formed by Democratic Party, Italy of Values, Federation of the Left, Federation of the Greens and the Italian Socialist Party, challenged the minister Renato Brunetta, supported by the center-right governmental coalition formed by The People of Freedom and Lega Nord.

Unexpectedly, Orsoni won the election on the first round.

Summary of the 2010 Venice City Council election results

Mayoral and City Council election, 2015

These elections were held on two rounds: the first on May 31, the second on June 14, 2015.

These elections occurred after a year during which the city were governed by a special commissioner after the incumbent mayor Giorgio Orsoni resigned in June 2014 amid a wider investigation into alleged corruption over new flood barriers MOSE Project.

The official candidate of the center-left coalition was the left-wing magistrate and senator Felice Casson, who failed to win the election in 2005. Cause of his opposition to Matteo Renzi's political line, Casson was generally considered as a representative of the extreme left parties, and based his campaign on the break with the old and corrupted politicians who were investigated the past year. The main opposition to Casson's coalition was the center-right independent Luigi Brugnaro, a businessman and president of the Reyer Venezia Mestre basketball club. Brugnaro was sustained by a coalition between Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the conservative Popular Area alliance.

Although Casson was ahead after the first round, on June 14 Brugnaro won the election and became the first directly-elected conservative mayor of the city. However, the victory of Brugnaro occurred thanks to his great popularity across the city: his own independent list resulted the first party and gained 17 of 36 seats in the City Council, while Forza Italia and Popular Area obtained together no more than 5% of the votes.

After the election, Brugnaro said he considered himself as an independent, totally free from parties' influence, and a supporter of Matteo Renzi's policy.^[8]

Summary of the 2015 Venice City Council election results