2024 Sardinian regional election

The 2024 Sardinian regional election took place on 25 February 2024. The election was for all 60 elected seats of the Regional Council of Sardinia, as well as the president of Sardinia, who automatically became a member of the Regional Council. The election was won by Alessandra Todde, who also became the first female president of Sardina. It was the first election of the 2024 Italian regional elections.

A member of the Five Star Movement, Todde led the centre-left coalition to a narrow win at 45.5% over the centre-right coalition and Brothers of Italy candidate Paolo Truzzu at 45.0%, with Renato Soru finishing a distant third at 8.7%. It was the first time since the 2015 Campania regional election that the centre-left coalition unseated a centre-right coalition regional president. Although Truzzu was not the incumbent president, having taken the place of Christian Solinas, the incumbent president since 2019 and member of the Sardinian Action Party, which is nationally allied with the League and affiliated to the centre-right coalition, it was still the centre-left coalition's first regional gain since 2015. It was the first election since the 2018 Lazio regional election where the winner of the presidential election did not win the plurality in the party vote due to split-ticket voting.

Background
The election in Sardinia was called for 25 February 2024. In November 2023, the Democratic Party (PD) and the Five Star Movement (M5S) announced Alessandra Todde, former undersecretary at the Ministry for Economic Development during the second Conte government, as joint candidate for the centre-left coalition. Disappointment regarding the agreement between PD and M5S emerged among potential coalition partners, such Italia Viva and More Europe, who had always been sceptical about cooperation with M5S; dissent also came from within the party, with Renato Soru, former president of Sardinia, criticising the decision to not hold an internal primary to choose the candidate. These disagreements led Soru to formalize his candidacy as independent less than a week later, immediately obtaining the support of More Europe and Christian Popular Union, and later joined also by Action, the Communist Refoundation Party, a list of PD dissidents, and a coalition of independentist movements.

The centre-right coalition faced internal divisions, with the incumbent president Christian Solinas seeking re-election with the support of the Sardinian Action Party (PSd'Az) and the League (Lega) but without the support of Brothers of Italy (FdI), whose regional coordinator had urging for a change of direction. During a meeting on 4 January 2024, a majority of the coalition members opted for Paolo Truzzu (FdI), the incumbent mayor of Cagliari, as candidate for the presidency, resulting in Solinas and the parties supporting his bid considering to break away from the coalition.

Coalition talks to reach a deal over a unitary candidacy went on unsuccessfully for a couple of weeks; the sudden news of Solinas being under investigation for corruption decreased significantly his chances of being a feasible candidate. The corruption charges, together with the other coalition partner's will to compromise with the League on other regional candidacies and on the introduction of a third mandate for regional governors, ultimately led the party to announcing its support to Truzzu's candidacy on 19 January 2014. Shortly after Lega's announcement, Solinas officially withdrew himself from the race, with PSd'Az choosing to endorse Truzzu.

The fourth candidate to join the race was Lucia Chessa, leader of the regionalist party Red Moors. Interest in running for the presidency was also expressed by Maria Rosaria Randaccio, with the support of the two Eurosceptic and anti-establishment movements Force of the People and Sardinia Free Zone; her bid was rejected by the electoral authority due to failing to gather the necessary signatures to take part in the election.

Election system
The candidate who obtains a plurality of the votes is elected president of Sardinia. If the elected candidate obtains at least 25% of the votes, the majority of the seats on the board are guaranteed on the lists who support them. The Sardinian electoral law provides for a single round, with a list vote, the possibility of expressing a preference within the chosen list, and voting for the presidential candidate, on a single card. It is possible to vote for a list and for a candidate who is not connected to each other (Article 9). The candidate who has obtained the relative majority is elected president (Article 1, paragraph 4). To the lists connected to the president-elect, a majority prize may be awarded in the following measure: 60% of the seats if the president-elect obtained a percentage of preference above 40%; 55% of the seats if the elected president has obtained a percentage of preferences between 25% and 40%, while no majority prize is awarded if the president is elected with less than 25% (Article 13). The law provides for a 10% threshold for coalitions, and 5% for non-coalitized lists (Article 1, paragraph 7). No barriers are foreseen for the lists within the coalitions that have exceeded 10%.