Regional elections date, Veneto to vote by November. Update on the alignments

Venice, May 10, 2025 – The die is cast. The Council of State has taken care of it - responding to the opinion requested by the outgoing and non-re-eligible governor, Luca Zaia - to dispel the date of the regional elections in Veneto .

The renewal of the legislative bodies and the President of the Region will take place next autumn, not in spring 2026, as would have been possible by applying the window provided for by the regional electoral law.

However, the administrative judges have highlighted that the date of the electoral consultations of the regional bodies "must in any case be compliant with the 'duration of the elective bodies' established by the state law. The regional law can only give in to the state law".

The request for exemption would have been used by Zaia to inaugurate the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in January.

The president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana , immediately sided with him. "I'm very sorry, Luca fought with me. We must not forget that at the beginning we were the only two to push forward the discussion of the Olympics," he remarked. "It was only Lombardy and Veneto that presented the dossier and gave the guarantees, so honestly and humanely I believe it would have been right for Zaia to continue to be president until the end of the Olympics."

The citizens of Veneto, however, will be called to the polls "by November 20", that is, within 60 days of the end of the current five-year legislature, "at the latest on the Sunday included in the following six days, that is, Sunday November 23, 2025".

Zaia, having learned of the decision, expressed regret: there is a risk of a low turnout at the polls, with high costs in any case - declared the governor while the opposition has invited to set the date of the elections when there are less than 6 months to go before the vote.

Even from a political point of view, uncertainty reigns in the main political alignments . In the center-right, the game is between the members of the Northern League who claim Zaia's good government and aim to maintain the leadership of the region and Brothers of Italy , which is the leading party in Veneto, which claims leadership.

"It is not a lèse-majesté to ask that the candidate for president be from the League, after which this is not up to me. Our regional secretary Stefani and the national secretary Salvini will participate in the negotiating tables to find a solution", warned the League governor.

And in fact much will depend on the internal balance of the center-right. In fact, Fdi could choose to give up Veneto in favor of Lombardy, for example.

Otherwise, the most popular names to succeed Zaia are those of the Minister of Enterprise Adolfo Urso , the president of the Agriculture Committee in the Senate, Luca De Carlo and the MEP Elena Donazzan .

The center-left and the coalition that should unite PD, Verdi-Sinistra, M5S, +Europa, Volt and other civic forces are also at sea. After the resignation of Antonella Viola , immunologist and well-known face of the pandemic, we are sailing blindly while from many quarters come calls to speed up the choice or procedures useful for identifying a unitary candidate.