The leader of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Enrico Letta is on track to win a parliamentary by-election in Siena, early results showed on Monday, strengthening his position as party leader.
Letta had said he would resign from the PD leadership if he lost, so the outcome has political repercussions far outside the Tuscan city, home of troubled lender Monte dei Paschi (MPS).
Early official data from the interior ministry show Letta winning 47.3%, ahead of the centre-right candidate Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi, a local winemaker, on 37.4%, with almost 30% of the vote counted.
However, PD officials in the city say the count is far more advanced and Letta has an even wider lead, with more than 50% of the vote.
Letta in March gave up an academic career in Paris to head up the PD and took advantage of the vacant seat in Siena to try to win a place in parliament.
Siena is a traditional centre-left stronghold but his decision was still considered risky because the demise of MPS, the biggest local employer, has been widely blamed on the PD's interference in the way the bank was managed.
The Italian Treasury took control of MPS in 2017 after a 5.4 billion euro ($6.27 billion) bailout but committed to returning the world's oldest bank to private hands by mid-2022 at the latest.
It is now trying to broker a deal with UniCredit to buy "selected parts" of MPS.
People close to the slow-moving talks have said that any breakthrough was unlikely before the by-election in Siena.
Pier Carlo Padoan - the economy minister who led the MPS rescue operation - gave up the Siena seat last November after being appointed chairman of UniCredit.
($1 = 0.8613 euros)
(Reporting by Silvia Ognibene, writing by Gavin Jones and Angelo Amante)
