(ANSA) - The sister of a famous anti-Mafia magistrate slain by the Mob could become the next head of Sicily's regional government after a landslide victory in a primary race here.
Rita Borsellino, the sister of Paolo Borsellino, won the ballot to represent the centre-left opposition in Sicily's regional government elections next year by almost 67%.
Support for the 60-year-old Borsellino was particularly high in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, where she garnered almost 75% of the vote.
She will be the first woman to run for Sicily's highest office.
Some 187,000 Sicilians turned out for the Sunday vote, far more than expected, which pitched Borsellino against another centre-left candidate, Catania University Chancellor Ferdinando Latteri.
The primary had caused tensions in the fractious opposition alliance.
Borsellino's candidacy was backed by all parties in the coalition except the centrist Daisy party, which fielded Latteri, a former member of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
However, Latteri's nomination also split the Daisy's ranks and many leading members, including former Palermo mayor and ex-regional government chief Leoluca Orlando, sided with Borsellino.
Her supporters hailed her victory as an encouraging sign in the fight against the Mafia.
"My candidacy was one for a break with the past and Sicilians understood this and gave me a task which I accept," Borsellino, a mother of three, said after the election.
Since her brother's murder, Borsellino has dedicated her life to combating the Mafia in Sicily.
In 1995, she became deputy chairman of Libera (Free), an association founded to encourage a sense of lawfulness and justice among young Sicilians.
Earlier this year, she was elected the organisation's honorary president.
Paolo Borsellino was killed in a car bomb outside their mother's house in Palermo in July 1992.
Five members of the magistrate's escort were also killed in the blast, including a policewoman.
The bombing came less than two months after the nation's leading anti-Mafia magistrate, Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca and three bodyguards were killed by a remote-controlled bomb planted under a motorway outside Palermo.
Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, the boss of bosses of the Sicilian Mafia captured in Palermo in January 1993, was quoted as saying in late June 1992 that the 'cupola' had to act because "Borsellino can do more damage than Falcone."
The killings rocked the nation to its core and stiffened resolve to do more to break the Mafia's power.
Borsellino's most likely opponent in the regional elections will be incumbent governor Salvatore Cuffaro, who is currently on trial for Mafia association. He denies all wrongdoing and has refused to step down.
Some observers say Cuffaro could step aside before next June's election and let Equal Opportunities Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo, who is Sicilian, lead the center-right slate. That would make it an all-woman race.
