Venice rejects autonomous rule with poll turnout of just 21%

Venetians have rejected autonomous local rule for
the fifth time in 40 years after just 21% turned out to vote in a referendum on
Sunday.
Though the majority of those who did vote supported
Venice separating from its mainland borough, Mestre, the referendum failed to
reach the 50% threshold required for it to be valid.
The vote was preceded by heated debates after
devastating floods in November, and pro-separatists had anticipated a higher
turnout.
“We were expecting a much better result,” said Marco
Gasparinetti, who leads the Gruppo 25 Aprile activist group. “We’ll now take
some time to reflect to understand what we can do going forward for the good of
our city.”
Those who campaigned for autonomy have pledged to
appeal against the result, arguing that the quorum was illegitimate as the
referendum was only consultative.
The floods further exposed Venice’s fragility, with
separatists believing that the lagoon city would be better equipped to deal
with its myriad problems by having control over its own affairs.
Venice has 11 inhabited islands and was in control
of its own administration until Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime combined it
with the industrial Mestre in 1926. The plan worked relatively well until
Venice’s population declined, Mestre’s grew and money that was intended to
preserve the former got diverted into developing the latter, bringing with it
shopping centres and huge hotels.
Venice’s dwindling population remains one of its
biggest concerns: it has fallen from about 175,000 in the postwar years to
55,000 today. Many people have been driven away by mass tourism and the
recurrent aqua alta, or high water. Triple the number of people live in Mestre,
a budget destination for tourists whose only aim is to see Venice.
The latest referendum followed failed attempts to
separate in 1989, 1994 and 2003.
The Venice mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, was accused of
trying to sabotage the vote by encouraging people to abstain.
Nicola Pellicani, a parliamentarian with the
centre-left Democratic party, who lives in Mestre, also opposed the referendum.
He told the Guardian: “The outcome showed that the referendum was
anachronistic. There is a lot of bad feeling in the historic centre towards the
mayor but we can’t split the city over this. We now need to focus on the
mayoral elections in May and work towards building a strong alternative.”