Omar Chessa is the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sassari

Omar Chessa was elected this evening as the new rector of the University of Sassari. He succeeds Gavino Mariotti. Chessa, a full professor of Constitutional Law, beat the other candidate remaining in the running in the third round of the election – Francesco Morandi, a full professor of Transport and Tourism Law and former regional councillor for Tourism – in the run-off, securing 364 votes against his opponent’s 312.

“I would like to thank everyone, particularly the other candidates. It has been a good election campaign – very intense and fiercely contested – and we have even found ourselves at odds over issues that will be crucial for the future of this University, but now is the time to restore unity, because the University of Sassari needs to rediscover its identity as a community,” said Chessa immediately after the results were announced in the University’s main lecture theatre. “At this university, we will need to work to rebuild a sense of collective belonging and to restore, so to speak, a sense of freedom, which is the very essence of a university; a university that is not a place where there is freedom is not a university.”