Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Gettu Images Berlusconi-led center-right scores upset wins in Italian elections Resurgence of Forza Italia and Northern League is a setback for former prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party.

ROME — Center-right parties scored a resounding victory in mayoral elections across Italy on Sunday, dealing a blow to the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) led by Matteo Renzi.

In one of the most closely-watched races, in the left-wing stronghold of Genoa, the mayoral candidate for the center-right — led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and the leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, Matteo Salvini — won with more than 55 percent of the votes. That marked the first victory for the center-right in left-wing stronghold of Genoa in the last 50 years.

Center-right candidates also prevailed in another leftish bastion, La Spezia, in L’Aquila, the capital of the central Abruzzo region, and in many of the cities up for grabs in the northern Lombardy region.

Sunday’s runoffs of Italy’s municipal elections, in which more than four million people were eligible to vote to elect mayors in 110 municipalities, were the last key electoral test ahead of the next general elections, due by the spring of 2018.

The strong performance of the center-right marks a comeback for Berlusconi, who campaigned strongly on television in the weeks before the vote, while Salvini hit most of the Italian towns called to the polls in his electoral tour.

Renzi tried to downplay the significance of Sunday’s vote, but acknowledged it was disappointing.

Sunday’s result will be interpreted as a call for unity for the center-right parties, weakened by divisions and a lack of leadership since Berlusconi was ousted from the Italian parliament after a tax fraud conviction in 2013.

At the local level his party has an agreement with the Northern League to field joint candidates, but they campaign separately at national level.

The 80-year-old Berlusconi — who’s trying to appeal to older voters with a softer new image — still leads Forza Italia, the third or fourth most popular in Italy with about 14 percent of the vote, according to the latest polls.

In recent years, Berlusconi has vied for control of the center-right with Salvini, who has transformed the Northern League from a small separatist force into a national populist party.

“Always more positive news from many cities. Go, go, go! Let’s go to govern,” Salvini wrote on Twitter on Sunday night, as the results of the runoffs started to become clear.

'Could have gone better'

Center-right leaders hailed it as a winning formula for the upcoming national elections, saying Forza Italia, the Northern League and smaller right-wing parties should join forces and overcome their differences.

“I think the center-right can stay together on a national level too," Liguria Governor Giovanni Toti of Forza Italia said on Sunday night, celebrating victory in the regional capital, Genoa.

Center-right parties also benefitted from the votes of disappointed supporters of the anti-establishment 5Star Movement, which performed poorly in the first round of the local elections on June 11, and was excluded from the runoffs in most of the largest cities.

The center-right resurgence dealt an unexpected setback to the center-left Democratic Party of Matteo Renzi, who regained the party leadership in late April, but still faces powerful internal dissent.

Renzi tried to downplay the significance of Sunday’s vote, but acknowledged it was disappointing. “In the total number of winning mayors, the PD is ahead, but it could have gone better,” Renzi wrote in a Facebook post late Sunday. “The overall result is not that good.”

Renzi has been trying to revitalize the center-left since he resigned as prime minister last December following a stinging defeat in a referendum on his flagship constitutional reforms. Since then, he has faced internal dissent and a painful schism from left-wing dissidents, who formed their own political movement.

At present, the PD is running neck-and-neck with the 5Stars in national polls at about 28 percent, with the two main center-right parties, Forza Italia and the Northern League, trailing behind at around 14 percent each.

Renzi’s successor as prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, faces growing dissatisfaction among Italian voters amid a timid economic recovery, an ongoing migration emergency and a banking crisis that forced the government to inject new public funds into the banking sector at the weekend, winding down two regional banks to shield depositors from losses.

With Italy heading to general elections next year with a mainly proportional electoral system, the risk is that none of the main parties will be able to clinch enough votes to win a stable parliamentary majority, raising the specter of a hung parliament.

That also means that Berlusconi' Forza Italia will be the power brokers, again.

“The lesson we can learn from this local election is that a resurgent center-right emerged as a powerful social block, still able to attract disappointed voters, even from the populist front,” said Franco Pavoncello, political science professor at Rome’s John Cabot University. “This means that Renzi and Berlusconi will have to sit at the same table after the next national vote and discuss a possible grand coalition. Right now, I don’t see any alternatives.”