Luigi Diego Perifano resigned from the Benevento City Council on 5 November 2026, closing his current council mandate and announcing that he will not run again for mayor.
Perifano said political space should be opened to a younger generation. He also said he intends to remain politically active alongside the opposition as a Socialist Party member.
Criticism of council role and administration record
At the center of his statement was criticism of how the council has worked. Perifano argued that the assembly had been sidelined and too often reduced to approving out-of-budget debts, using the Italian term "votificio" to describe a council called mainly to vote through such measures.
He also criticized the administration's handling of funds linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, unfinished works and the effects of judicial investigations on public trust. Those points were presented as Perifano's political allegations; the reporting acquired for this article does not present them as independently established findings.
Resignation follows opposition protest
The resignation followed a period of heightened opposition mobilisation in Benevento.
On 26 October 2026, several hundred people attended an opposition demonstration in Benevento calling for Mayor Clemente Mastella and his administration to resign. Perifano participated in that demonstration, according to national press coverage of the event.
That sequence matters for readers: the council resignation did not come in isolation, but after public opposition pressure had already become visible in the streets.
What remains unclear
Two practical questions remain open.
First, the available reporting does not establish who will replace Perifano on the council or when the council will formally acknowledge the resignation.
Second, it does not establish whether the resignation changes the balance of seats in Palazzo Mosti, the seat of the Benevento municipal government. Readers following the council should therefore watch for the formal acknowledgement of the resignation and the announcement of a successor, rather than assume an immediate institutional effect.
For now, the confirmed facts are the resignation itself, the decision not to seek another mayoral candidacy, the stated reason of making room for younger candidates, continued opposition activity, and a sharp critique of council procedure, project delivery and public confidence in local institutions.
