(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 20 - Institutions must work to get people voting again, President Sergio Mattarella said after turnout was sharply down in regional elections in Emilia-Romagna and Umbria on Sunday and Monday.
    They are the latest in a string of local and national polls at which turnout has dropped.
    "Freedom and pluralism as vectors of development of the new Italy. An Italy in which participation in elections - after the era of podestà appointed by the regime - made citizens effective protagonists. For this reason too, we must work, culturally and politically, to get voter turnout to rise again," Mattarella told the assembly of Italian municipalities (ANCI) in Turin.
    The president added: "The role of the Municipalities is crucial, as is their function of representing the expectations of their respective communities, participating in the choices that involve the fate of their respective populations. The Municipalities are the most emblematic expression of Italian diversity, a symbol of the freedom and unity of our country. The Constituents (who drafted the Italian Constitution, ed.) wanted to place the autonomy of the Municipalities as the linchpin of social and institutional pluralism".
    Mattarella also said: "Collaboration between institutions is a republican duty. With whom should we build the Italy of the next decades, a work that requires choral and widespread participation, harmony between institutions, convergence of popular demands, if not with the Municipalities? Concord is necessary in the face of emergencies, which have unfortunately become frequent. When the principle of legality is attacked. In the face of threats to the functioning and dignity of the institutions". (ANSA).